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Concept
Llynvi and Ogmore Railway
Summary
In 1861 the Llynvi Valley Railway was opened in Glamorganshire, Wales, to convey mineral products to the Bristol Channel at Porthcawl. It adopted an earlier tramroad, the Duffryn Llynvi and Porthcawl Railway. The Llynvi and Ogmore Railway was opened in 1865, and the two companies amalgamated to form the Llynvi and Ogmore Railway in 1866. At first Porthcawl harbour was an important destination for onward transport, but this soon declined.
The area covered by the two lines combined developed considerably serving collieries and the iron and zinc smelting industries, and the L&OR system was extremely busy in conveying minerals up until 1914. A number of extensions to the system were made, even after takeover by the Great Western Railway in 1873 for management purposes and in 1883 as full amalgamation.
Passengers were carried on parts of the network, but were never dominant except at Porthcawl, which declined as a harbour and arose as a holiday and residential location. As the mineral industries declined after 1945 the railway network followed, but in 1992 the line from Bridgend to Maesteg was reopened to passenger trains, and that is the principal remaining railway activity on the old L&OR network.
The Llynfi Valley runs north to south, from the high mountains north of Maesteg down to Tondu where it joins the River Ogmore, which itself continues through Bridgend to the Bristol Channel at Ogmore-by-Sea.
In the first half of the eighteenth century the area was entirely rural, but coal outcropped in the ground and was used by farmers, and some was taken away for sale by pack animal. Charcoal had been used for smelting iron but in the second half of the 18th century, coke began to be used instead; limestone was available locally and was used in the process.
Cefn Cribwr had been the site of a blast furnace established by John Bedford in 1780, though that declined after Bedford's death in 1791. William Bryant took over the works in about 1825. Elsewhere though, the industry had been on a small scale.
Official source
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