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The Llanelly and Mynydd Mawr Railway was authorised in 1875. It made use of part of the long defunct Carmarthenshire Railway or Tramroad of 1801. The older line began running trains in 1803, and was a plateway of about 4 ft (1,219 mm) gauge, with horse traction, for the purpose of bringing minerals from the Mynydd Mawr to the sea for onward shipment at Llanelly Docks.
The Llanelly and Mynydd Mawr line opened in 1881, worked by the contractor, John Waddell, who had built the line and taken a majority of the shares. The fortunes of the company were closely bound with those of the mineral industries, which fluctuated considerably. The Company considered operating a public passenger service but never did so, although workmen's trains were operated for some years. The decline of coal mining in the area seemed to be reversed when the huge new Cynheidre Pit was established in the 1960s, but the railway capacity enhancements to deal with the expected upsurge in traffic proved to be unnecessary. The line closed completely in 1989.
The Local Government Act 1972 created new Welsh counties all of which had Welsh-language names, and many towns opted to change their name at about the same time. The town of Llanelly had already changed its name to Llanelli in 1966 by local demand. The historic names of railway companies and locations are used in this article where appropriate to the period. Some names have variant spellings in source material, for example Cwm Mawr / Cwmmawr.