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The Oystermouth Railway or Tramroad, later known as the ‘Mumbles Railway’, linked the Swansea Bay area firmly into the economic area of the lower Swansea Valley itself, more particularly the coal deposits of the Clyne Valley and the limestone beds of the Oystermouth and Mumbles areas. Many of the features and structures known from the lower Swansea Valley survive in the Clyne Valley, partly as result of the severe faulting of the coal-seams and the gentrification of the area during the nineteenth century. Because of the early failure of these industries in what is now a heavily wooded valley they have survived the large-scale reclamation necessitated by the gross pollution of the lower Swansea Valley itself.The remains include the shaft mounds of early collieries, the last part of readily recognisable formation of the Oystermouth Tramroad, the remains of what may have been an underground canal and the last visible remains of smelting furnaces in the city that was once the world-centre of non-ferrous smelting.
This tramroad is historically important as the world's first railed way to carry a regular passenger service. It was probably the almost total financial failure of the line's mineral-carrying trade that prompted this pioneering innovation. The relationship of the railway to the Swansea Canal is uncertain. Contemporary evidence strongly implies that this scheme originally evolved by 1800 as part of a project of the industrial entrepreneurs, John Morris I, Thomas Lockwood and their landlord, the Duke of Beaufort. This triumvirate had invested heavily in, and benefited from, the intense mechanisation of an old coalfield situated in the Swansea Valley between Landore and Morriston (within the northern boundaries of modern Swansea). The price of at least some types of coal in Swansea had fallen, as predicted, after the opening of the hitherto unexploited upper valley by the canal in 1794-96.2 It would appear that John Morris I and his associates planned to market coal obtained cheaply from the Clyne Valley in direct competition with that brought down the Swansea Canal. By 1803, when the scheme was being more actively promoted, it had been enlarged to exploit the limestone quarries at Oystermouth and Mumbles which would of course have competed with Cribarth limestone quarries at the top of the Swansea Canal.
The new line was primarily intended to supply two markets with coal, the export trade accessible via the river wharves of Swansea, and the four copper smelteries situated further north alongside the Swansea Canal. Up to 60,480 tons of coal could have been fed annually to the canal and 151,200-196,560 tons to the river wharves at Swansea.3 The main markets for limestone would have been used in copper smelting, on the lower valley farmlands, and in the building industry of Swansea. The Canal Company would never have allowed a parallel railway under separate ownership to be constructed alongside the lower part of the canal to bypass the need for trans-shipment. The proposed continuation of the tramroad, for the 2,400m. between Swansea and the copper smelting area of Landore, was thus never built.
At first sight it may appear that this use of the canal would have been a financially rewarding addition to the revenues of the Swansea Canal Company. However, the greater part of the trade of the canal consisted of coal brought down the entire length of the waterway to the Swansea river wharves. A boat used on such traffic would pay tolls of 25s. In contrast, Clyne coal transhipped from the Oystermouth Tramroad to the Swansea Canal would only have paid tolls of 4s. 6d. a boat. An even greater threat was the possibility that coal carried by the tramroad - as much as 75% of the total - might have been exported and undercut the market for the longer-haul canal traffic. The Canal would have been financially embarrassed if the predictions of a leading local mining engineer had been fulfilled. Edward Martin claimed that the new line would result in the availability of Clyne coal in Swansea at 20s. per way cheaper than Swansea Valley coal, and limestone at half the current price. This largely explains why the proprietors never tried to avoid the expense of an Act of Parliament by the expedient of constructing a tramroad using the compulsory powers available to them under the 'eight-mile clause' of the Swansea Canal Act. The General Assembly or Committee of the Canal Company would never have granted such powers to a transport concern that was so detrimental to its larger interests. The railway was finally closed on this day in 1960.
