Mineral wealth in the form of coal and iron-ore deposits located in Clyne Valley as well as the stone and limestone quarries at Oystermouth, were the prime motives behind Sir John Morris’s scheme for promoting the establishment of the Swansea to Oystermouth tram-road, as he owned Ynys and Rhydydefaid mines and wished to facilitate easier access and transportation.

Later maps are included within this article and at its end.

On 29 June 1804, an Act of Parliament was passed ‘for making and maintaining a Railway or Tramroad. . . the hailing [sic] or drawing of the wagons to be done by men, horses or otherwise.’ On 4 July, a meeting was held at ‘The Bush Inn’, High Street, Swansea and a list of shareholders was announced. They were The Most Noble Henry Charles, Duke of Beaufort  who had five shares;  Sir John Morris of Clasmont, Baronet also  five shares;   John Edmund of Swansea,  Ironmonger, two; Edward Martin of Morriston, five;   Benjamin French also of Morriston, Gentleman, four; John Jeffreys of Swansea, Esquire, three and The Burgesses of the Borough of Swansea, five.                                             

Each share would be worth £100. The shareholders would own the line and any carriers would pay a toll to use it. The railway’s construction began in the autumn of 1804, the rail laying in the Autumn of 1805 with Messrs Homfray and Co being paid £2,794 .. 0s ..6d  for tram plates and castings and the line was up and running in April 1806, when the first cargo was transported.

               The original line commenced at the Brewery Bank next to the Swansea Canal, proceeded along The Strand, across the Burrows and along the sand hills to the Castle Hill terminus at Oystermouth (opposite Clements Quarry on what is now the dairy car park site), with a branch line connecting with the coal mine at Ynys in Clyne Valley,  Blackpill. More details  can be found on the Clyne Valley Community Project website at Winning Coal 

Benjamin French then thought that it might be a good idea to transport people on some vehicles instead of cargo and so on 25 March 1807 the track saw its first fare-paying passengers paying two shillings to take a ride in a horse-drawn twelve-seater carriage.

Thus, the Mumbles Railway became the world’s first Passenger railway, pre-dating by 20 years, the Stockton and Darlington’s, which holds the record as being the world’s first Steam passenger railway.

               Because the main quarries at Mumbles were well beyond The Dunns, the quantity of limestone carried was disappointing. Consequently in 1813, the Company extended the line across the courtyard of Dunns Mansion in The Dunns (then situated on the seaward side of the junction of what is now Newton Road and Mumbles Road) then on through a field called ‘Shortlands’ belonging to Abra and David Taylor.

However, in 1818, Mrs. Angell of Dunns Mansion, who hitherto had not seemed to oppose the project, brought an action for trespass against Mr. John Morris, after taking up the templates in her courtyard in 1817, which he had promptly challenged and had re-laid. She won her case, claiming that the beach in front of Dunns as far as low water was hers ‘ere the sea had made its inroads on that flat which now forms the admired bay of Swansea.’

               In 1815, the sea-side track between Blackpill and West Cross was washed away in a storm and was relayed a little further inland on the stretch from Blackpill to Norton.

In 1823, a car, capable of containing 16 people, drawn by one horse went from Swansea to Oystermouth at Castle Hill Terminus,  twice a day; the charge now being one shilling. But in 1826, a turnpike road was completed between Swansea and Oystermouth alongside the railway track.  Horse-drawn buses soon utilized the road and in conjunction with the decrease in mineral traffic, the railway suffered and could not compete. Consequently, for almost thirty years, it lay virtually abandoned, only carrying a small amount of cargo once in a while

               In 1855, part of the line was re-laid between the Strand and the collieries in Clyne Valley and then, five years later, George Bing Morris re-introduced a horse-drawn service for passengers from the Royal Institution [of South Wales, Victoria Road, Swansea] to Blackpill at a charge of 3d single and 4d return.

 In 1860, Morris had the remainder of the line between Blackpill and Oystermouth re-laid along the abandoned track adjacent to the turnpike road (on the down side of today's widened Mumbles Road). In the 1860s, railway builder, John Dickson, laid an extension across the beach to the Mumbles Head, but he also had no proper permission and the new track had to be abandoned.

               Mail was transported from Swansea to Mumbles to James Orrin's Post Office at Southend (on the site of today's Carlton Hotel) on the train each morning and following collections from the offices and the post boxes, in the reverse direction.

By 1869, there were 10 trains running in each direction on weekdays, 11 on Saturdays and 5 on Sundays. A first class fare was 7d and second class, 5d, one way. It took one or two horses to pull a single carriage or more! The train stopped at Rutland Street, Waterworks Road, Sketty Road, Blackpill Road, Bishopston Road, Lilliput Road, West Cross Road, Norton Road and Oystermouth.

               By 1874, a prospectus prepared for the issue of 2,500 shares of £10 each, recorded that ‘each train comprised one or more carriages with one or two horses to each and the journey took 43 minutes to cover the five miles. As many as 5,000 passengers had been carried in one day.’

In 1889, the Mumbles Railway and Pier Company was formed to lay a line one mile and 22 chains long from Oystermouth to Mumbles Head and to construct a Pier. The initial stretch 61 chains long opened from Oystermouth to Southend in May 1893, but in September of that year, Mr. James Orrin, the Post-master of Southend Post Office, met with a horrific accident while walking home along the railway track at dusk, following a visit to the regatta. He fell into the water tank, which was situated between the rails and was the repository of the hot water from the engines. He was terribly scalded and despite medical care from Dr. Bevan, he died a few days later.

The remainder of the line and the Pier, 800 foot long opened on 10 May 1898 at a cost of £10,000, with another £40,000 spent on improvements such as the Skating Rink and Bandstand. The 1904 Centenary souvenir book of the Mumbles Railway, recorded that ‘The Pier has become, without doubt, the most popular resort in the locality’ and steamers such as the ‘Brighton’ would call to take trippers across to Ilfracombe.

               For skating enthusiasts, The Pier offered a combined, ‘Mumbles Railway /Admission to the Pier /3 hour skating ticket’ on its new Asphalt rink. It cost 1/‑ from Swansea, 9d from Blackpill and 6d from Oystermouth.

The old Castle Hill terminus was closed and new stations were made at Oystermouth, Southend and at the Pier. In the Edwardian era, the Station Master at Oystermouth Station was Bob Millard, dressed in a frock‑coat and a peak cap, who would ring a huge hand-bell to signal the Mumbles Train to leave for the Pier. The other staff included two porters, Jim and Fred Martin and a van driver, Reg Hoyle. The premises themselves consisted of a ticket‑office and a waiting‑room, where, in winter, a roaring fire burned in the grate.

               Some of the other employees on the railway at that time were Firemen, Georgie White, Jack Winston, Will Veal and Raymond Loaring; some went on to be Drivers, like Gordon Davies, Frank Dunkin, Ernie Phillips, Bill Phillips and Alf Williams. Owen Davies, who went on to be an Inspector in 1912, Harry Bailey and Fred Williams were some of the Conductors; W. J. Shellock was the Senior Guard; Joseph Bailey, a Guard and W. Gibson was an Auxiliary Guard.         

On 1st March 1929, the last steam trains ran along the Mumbles Railway driven by long-service employees, W. Williams, H. Davies and W. Veale and the next day, 2nd March, electrified services, which many of us remember, began with a fleet of thirteen double-decker cars, each seating 106 passengers — 48 on the lower deck and 58 on the upper deck, running over the same route with additional passing places. There was an entrance platform and staircase at each end, both entrances being on the landward side. 

A train might becomposed of one or two of these coaches, so that a maximum of 212 seats could be available for any journey. Initially the coaches were painted cream and brown to match the town's trams, but later they became the much-remembered red. The travelling time was reduced to nineteen minutes barring delays. The electric power of 6,600 volts alternating current was transported by an overhead trolley wire from the Corporation's generating station to the   sub-station at Blackpill, where it was converted to direct current of 650 volts and supplied to the line's various feeding points.

The prewar summer timetable reveals that there were sixty journeys each way on weekdays and forty on Sundays. During 1938, passenger numbers totalled 1,192,922. When during the war, petrol rationing made it impossible for businessmen to use their cars and bus services were restricted, passenger numbers rose to unprecedented heights. In 1945, they totalled 4,995,000 and in 1946, 4,237,000.

The Mumbles Railway helped to bolster public morale, for its familiar coaches were a source of comfort to many citizens who came to appreciate its dependable service and share in a kind of passenger camaraderie, which existed throughout those anxious years.

Many children of the time travelled to school on them, with the fare from West Cross to Oystermouth Square being one old penny. Other older children went from Mumbles to the Grammar Schools in Swansea and in Memories of the Mumbles Train  , we recount the memories from those who traveled or worked on it and those who just loved it.

A new 21st Century land train is now operating during the summer months, from Blackpill to Southend and so the little Victorian Ticket Office is once again welcoming passengers who disembark alongside, on their arrival at the delightful seaside village of Mumbles.

Acknowledgments

Norman Thomas, The Mumbles—Past and Present, 1978

Susan Thomas, The Mumbles Railway, An unpublished dissertation, 1975

Oystermouth Historical Association archive

Ein Newyddion, Staff Journal of South Wales Transport Co. Ltd., July 1954 & Jan/Feb 1960

Map of the Swansea and Mumbles Railway, Wikimedia Commons 

ALL the railways in Swansea

Not all the lines and stations shown on the map, were open at the same time

The Stations after 1929, when the line moved to Electric motive power:

The Pier. Southend. Oystermouth. Norton. West Cross. Blackpill. Ashleigh Road. Brynmill. The Slip. Argyle Street. Rutland Street.