Burry Port and Gwendraeth Valley Railway

The Burry Port and Gwendraeth Valley Railway was a mineral railway company in Carmarthenshire, South Wales. It built its line largely by converting an old canal, connecting collieries and limestone pits with the sea at Kidwelly, and it later extended to Burry Port, Trimsaran, a brickworks at Pwll and finally Sandy near Llanelli. It took this name in 1866 when the Kidwelly and Burry Port Railway was combined with the Burry Port Harbour Company. For a time it also worked the separate Gwendraeth Valleys Railway. The line was known for the very low overbridges left over from the canal conversion. Wholly dependent on the mineral industries, it spent many years in administration, then paid ten percent dividends for several years before the Great Western Railway absorbed it in 1922. Public passenger trains ran from 1913 until 1953, and the last short section at Kidwelly closed in 1998.