page_title: Carmarthen–Aberystwyth line
section_title: Manchester and Milford Railway
hierarchical_section_title: Carmarthen–Aberystwyth line / History / Manchester and Milford Railway
caption_attribution_description: English: Facsimile of 1866 Ordnance Survey map of Llangurig, showing the extent of construction of the final section of the ill-fated Manchester and Milford (Haven) Railway. Railway is the hatched double-line entering map from mid right-hand edge.
context_page_description: The Carmarthen–Aberystwyth line was originally a standard-gauge branch line of the Great Western Railway in Wales, connecting Carmarthen and Aberystwyth.
  It is now also a proposed railway link from Carmarthen railway station to Aberystwyth railway station, with five new proposed stations at Llanilar, Tregaron, Lampeter, Llanybydder and Pencader, with an estimated cost between £505 million and £700 million.
  At Carmarthen, the line connected with the GWR mainline from London Paddington to Fishguard. At Aberystwyth, the line connected with the Cambrian Line. The line also had connecting branches to Aberaeron, Llandeilo and Newcastle Emlyn.
  As a result of floods and the Beeching Axe, the line was entirely closed to passengers in February 1965. Freight traffic from Pont Llanio creamery to Aberaeron Junction ended in 1970; that from Green Grove siding and from Newcastle Emlyn to Carmarthen ended in September 1973. The track was lifted in 1975, except for a short section at Bronwydd Arms station which was to be used by the Gwili Railway Preservation Society for its heritage train operation.
context_section_description: The Manchester and Milford Railway was an ambitious proposal to connect Manchester and the industrialised Midlands and Northwest England with the docks at Milford Haven. This was a standard gauge line using the LNWR and Midland Railway metals (the M&MR would have connected with the Mid-Wales Railway at Llanidloes) and then, via a junction at Strata Florida, with the C&CR at Pencader. Trains would then have run on the C&CR to Carmarthen before connecting to the Pembroke and Tenby Railway for connection to the deepwater port at Milford Haven. The plan was that, combined with industrial traffic from South Wales, Milford Haven could "provide the Lancashire cotton industry with [an] alternative port to Liverpool."
  The scheme ran into financial difficulties.  The simplest section had been constructed first which meant that it faced undertaking the toughest engineering challenge – the line between Llanidloes and Strata Florida – when the money was running out. Though it started on the Llangurig branch, diverging from the Mid-Wales Railway at Penpontbren Junction, and got as far as Llangurig, it was decided, in 1865, instead to simply divert the Lampeter route to Aberystwyth rather than build it through the mountains, abandoning the hope for a strategic route. It has been suggested that the bankruptcy of Thomas Savin, renowned Welsh railway engineer and investor, in the 1860s, may have been partly involved as it was with the failure of several other Welsh railway projects. It opened this modified through line in 1867 and remained independent until taken over by the Great Western Railway by 1911.
  The initial 1861 route survey (which had parliamentary approval) and a later 1864 route were locally controversial.  The unbuilt section between Strata Florida and the railhead of the Llangurig branch would have been through very mountainous terrain, although only 15 miles (24 km) in length as the crow flies.
caption: The Llangurig branch as built
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS Windows", "Image DateTime": "2007:04:18 17:20:29", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "9412", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "355", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "221"}