 At this stage it was a horse-drawn plateway, charging a toll for private hauliers to use it with horse traction.The traffic was chiefly minerals from the Forest of Dean, in the Whimsey and Churchway areas, near modern-day Cinderford, for onward conveyance from Bullo Pill at first, and later by the Great Western Railway.When the South Wales Railway was proposed in 1844, the FODR was awarded £15,000 to modernise its line and make a broad gauge edge railway in connection; the FODR was slow to implement this and in 1849 the South Wales Railway purchased the FODR outright, making it a branch of its own network.