horse traction was used. The most important waggonway on the estate brought coal from a pit at Cille to Llanelly where small ships were beached for loading, as there was no proper wharfage at the time. In 1804 the Carmarthenshire Railway was opened; it was an important plateway connecting coal pits near Cross Hands and ironworks to the harbour (which it developed itself) at Llanelly. In 1812 the Kidwelly and Llanelly Canal and Tramroad Company was authorised by Parliament. As well as the main line of the canal, there were to be waggonways as feeders to the canal. Two waggonway branches, probably of 4 ft 2in gauge in connection with the Burry Port harbour were completed in 1832. The waggonways were horse-operated; one ran north to Cwmcapel and the other east to Sandy, near Llanelly. At this point it connected with the Cille Colliery waggonway on the Stradey Estate. Completion of the project was much delayed, taking until 1837, by which time railway technology was clearly overtaking canals as the dominant transport medium. A powerful storm breached the main line near Sandy in 1846, and the low traffic volume was not considered to justify the expenditure of reinstatement. From then onwards the line from Burry Port ended at a colliery and brickworks at Pwll. The company also had two short branch canals which were extended by tramroads to the collieries at Trimsaran and Carway. The tramroads were owned by the respective collieries. The main line of the canal up the Gwendraeth Fawr Valley reached Cwm Mawr at a considerable altitude, and the upper level had three inclined planes, with gradients of 1 in 13, 1 in and 1 in . By 1865 the top portion of the canal above this last incline had become disused, and a tramroad was laid along the towpath. Broad gauge railways In 1844 the Great Western Railway (GWR) sponsored the South Wales Railway to build a broad gauge railway connecting Gloucester, and the GWR network, with Fishguard, originally with the intention of forming a rail and ferry connection to Dublin. The line from Landore (Swansea) to Carmarthen opened on 11 October 1852. The GWR worked the line, and although the relationship was not always smooth, amalgamation followed on 1 August 1863. When the South Wales Railway line was opened it crossed the tramroads to Pwll and Cwm Capel on the level. There had been proposals