Memories of the train's early days

The historical facts of the enterprise cannot bring to life the atmosphere and excitement of those times as can memories, writings and memorabilia.

Everyone over a certain age has their own particular experiences of riding on the Mumbles Train, whether by horse, steam or electric.

Over the years, locals and visitors alike have contributed their reminisences to our association in the form of paintings, poems, prose, photos and souvenir items.

They were the people who had travelled, lived and worked alongside, and on the Mumbles Railway, and who captured the essence of the world's first passenger railway in such a unique way.

A ride on the horsedrawn railway

One of the first people to record their warm memories was one Miss Elizabeth Isabella Spence, an authoress, who wrote excitedly in a letter to her friend Turnour, the Dowager Countess of Winterton in 1808, "I never spent an afternoon with more delight than the former one in exploring the romantic scenery of Oystermouth.

"I was conveyed there in a carriage of a singular construction, built for the conveniency [sic] of parties, who go hence to Oystermouth to spend the day.

"The car contains twelve persons and is constructed chiefly of iron, its four wheels run on an iron railway by the aid of one horse, and is an easy and light vehicle"

The days of steam

Margery Bowden (née Jenkins), a member of an old Southend family regaled her family with tales of long ago, when as an old lady she recounted her memories of summer life along the 'concrete' before the Great War.

"We would build a grotto and trim it up smart. Then we would wait for the old steam train to come along and we sing "patronize the grotto please, a ha'penny or a penny!"

"The people sitting on the top would throw us pennies and with the people passing on the 'concrete', we would make quite a bit, which we would save up and go to the shows.

"As I grew up, I had to do my share of work as my father was a fisherman, dredging for oysters in winter and fishing in the summer.

"So I had to learn to pull the boat, pump out the skiff, bag oysters, open them and help to sell them with my father.

"We used to send some to London or anywhere they were wanted. We used to bag them and wheel them to the old Mumbles Train at Southend and send them by rail.

"My father and brother were also lifeboat men and my youngest brother Ernest, a lampman. The lifeboat in those days was in the old boathouse and when called out, the Mumbles Train used to have to stop for the men to get the boat down and up, as it had to cross the line to get to the sea.

"So in our house every night during the winter, my brothers and father would put three jerseys, coats and pairs of wellingtons, ready in case there was a call."