The Bush Inn in waterfront Swansea is an unassuming two-story stone house that holds within its walls a bit of lost history. Miners from the Mumbles gathered there to discuss the building of a railroad, to make the transport of coal easier between Mumbles, where they worked, to Swansea, where the coal could be loaded onto ships. The livelihood of the entire region lay in the transport link to Swansea, which before the overland route took place by much less efficient ships. So it was agreed: a new railway linking the two locations would be built.

On this day, March 25, in 1807, a year after it opened for cargo transport, the Swansea-Mumbles railway opened to the riding public. One of the proprietors, Benjamin French, came up with the brilliant idea of converting an iron carriage for passenger transport by rail, and after agreeing to pay the owners 20 pounds a year for use, began advertising his service.

The rails were in place, but the locomotive would not come for several decades still. Transport via rail came from horses. Steam power was just beginning to be introduced, and though even Thomas Watt doubted it would do much good for rail transport an early version of a steam-powered train ran briefly on the Swansea-Mumbles 5-mile track. The problem that caused it to stop was, ironically, with the tracks themselves: they simply buckled under the weight of the train and cargo.