Last time we saw how railways developed in our local valleys. The Age of Steam, however, would last little more than a hundred years in our area. When the railways were nationalized in 1948 a steady but remorseless programme of rail closure was unleashed on an unsuspecting public, culminating in the infamous Beeching closures from 1963 onwards. Richard Beeching was a senior civil servant commissioned to undertake a root-and-branch reorganisation of the railway industry in the face of a massive growth of road traffic throughout the twentieth century. Reorganisation, then as now, was just a code-word for closure, but the various railway branches of the Amman valley line were lopped off even before BeechingÕs axe got to work.

In 1950, just two years after nationalizing the rail industry for the ÔnationÕ, the Brynamman to Swansea valley line was suddenly closed. The last passenger train on the Amman valley line was the 10.34 pm service from Pantyffynnon to Brynamman on Saturday August 18th 1958, though coal continued to be carried by train from the few collieries left by the post-war pit-closure programme. At nationalization of the nationÕs coal mines in 1947 there were still twenty collieries in the Amman valley and district. Now, there are no longer any deep mines since the last Amman valley mine, Betws colliery, was closed in 2003, though some coal still continues to be carried by rail along the Amman valley line today from the open-cast site at Tairgwaith, just five miles up the Amman valley.

When PencaeÕr Eithin colliery in Llandybie closed in December 1958 the little spur line to the colliery was closed with it, the seams later to be mined by the open cast method by the Shands company. In the 1970s Shands bought up the old coal line that had once carried coal by rail from PencaeÕr Eithin colliery and converted it to a road to bring the coal by lorry to a nearby washery. Though Shands abandoned the road when they finished mining, it is still known today as the Shands Road.

Then, when the last coal mine on this line, Cross Hands colliery, closed in May 1962, this stretch of the coal line no longer had any purpose and the track was pulled up soon after.

The final closure on our local network had to await the implementation of BeechingÕs programme and the Llandeilo to Carmarthen line was on his hit-list, disappearing in 1964.

1964, too, was the last year you could take your bucket and spade to Swansea Bay station by train, because the 27th of June 1964 was when BeechingÕs axe severed the Pontardulais to Swansea Victoria branch of the line. The stations on this branch Ð Gowerton (where a branch went to Penclawdd on the north Gower coast), Dunvant, Killay, Swansea Bay and Victoria station itself Ð all passed into memory (Swansea Leisure Centre now occupies the site of the old Victoria station). Since then, the train to Swansea goes first to Llanelli where it reverses out and crosses the Loughor bridge to arrive at Swansea High Street, not Victoria, station.

Here is a summary of the line-closure programme: 1950 Brynamman to Swansea (St Thomas) passenger line: the Swansea Vale line.

1959 Amman valley passenger line (Pantyffynnon to Brynamman).

1958 Coal branch from Ammanford to Pen CaeÕr Eithin colliery, Llandybie.

1962 Coal branch from Ammanford to Cross Hands colliery.

1963 Llandeilo to Carmarthen passenger line: the Towy Valley line.

1964 Pontardulais to Swansea (Victoria) passenger line.

1988 Coal line from Garnant to Abernant Colliery.

What happened to the old railway lines after closure? Well, the railway tracks were torn up and the land either sold to local farmers and landowners or left to revert to nature. A great opportunity to convert them to walking or cycling routes was lost and it is virtually impossible to walk along the course of old railway lines anymore or even find them, as they are now in private ownership.

Now, only the Swansea to Shrewsbury line survives, renamed for marketing purposes as the Heart of Wales line, the last trace of the Age of Steam in our area. Trains, however, have been pulled since 1964 by more efficient diesel-electric locomotives. The Age of Diesel? I donÕt think so.

Still, the Heart of Wales line is still with us and is well worth a day out, its 120-mile length passing through some of the prettiest countryside youÕll ever see in Britain.