At this time the Great Western Railway operated a ferry service to Ireland from Neyland (New Milford) and the NP&FR boldly sought to challenge this with a shorter crossing to Rosslare.

The significance of Fishguard was that the GWR intended, with the collaboration of new railways in Ireland, to capture the contract for the official mail traffic between London and Dublin.

[2][page needed] It was always in effect a subsidiary of the Great Western Railway, and a perpetual lease by the GWR of the SWR in December 1846 was agreed to start from the completion to Fishguard.

There were difficulties about the route at the Gloucester end of the South Wales Railway, and Brunel began to have misgivings about the suitability of Fishguard, which at the time had no sheltered harbour facilities.

In 1845 there was widespread loss of the potato crop on which a majority of Irish people depended for a living, resulting in mass starvation and commercial depression, which deepened the following year.

[3][page needed] Observing the deepening crisis in Ireland, the WWW&DR company cut back its plans and declared that it could not build to Wexford.

[1][page needed][4][page needed] For some years small-scale slate quarrying operations had been carried on at Rosebush, high in the Preseli Hills, and eight miles from the South Wales Railway main line at a station called Narberth Road, itself three miles from Narberth.

Cropper and Macaulay applied in July 1871 for a Board of Trade certificate under the Railways Construction Facilities Act 1864 (27 & 28 Vict.

[7] Passenger operation was contemplated at the planning stage: a clause in the authorisation required Cropper to arrange for one train daily to call at a station at Llanycefn whose location was to be agreed with the Ecclesiastical Commissioners.

There was an agreement with the Great Western Railway that that company would lay a third track for about a mile alongside its main line to allow Cropper's trains to reach Narberth Road station.

A trial run by the contractors in September 1875 reputedly allowed passengers travelling to the annual hiring fair at Maenclochog, while slate traffic appears to have started from January 1876.

[7] Colonel C S Hutchinson inspected the line on 3 May 1876 on behalf of the Board of Trade for public opening, but he was dissatisfied with the intended arrangement at Narberth Road for branch trains and he declined to give approval.

Even on opening day, there was ambitious talk of extending the line from Rosebush to Fishguard, and instituting a harbour there in opposition to the GWR.

[citation needed] A contract for construction was soon let, but the lack of available money delayed actual progress and in 1881 the Rosebush and Fishguard Railway Act 1881 (44 & 45 Vict.

At the same time agreement was reached with the Narberth Road and Maenclochog Railway to operate the two lines (when complete) as a single entity.

c. ccxxxvi), allowing a further extension of time, and changing the name of the project to the North Pembrokeshire and Fishguard Railway.

[note 3] Relations with the Narberth Road and Maenclochog Railway had been collaborative early on, but had progressively deteriorated and now Cropper refused for a time to permit plant and wagons to access the Rosebush works over his railway; the NP&FR had to insist on exercising their running powers, laid down by Parliament in the act.

[citation needed] As before, little progress was made and a further extension of time was authorised by Parliament via the North Pembrokeshire and Fishguard Railway Act 1886 (50 Vict.

c. xcvii), of 29 June 1893, to construct a railway a little less than a mile in length from Goodwick, where the North Pembrokeshire was to terminate, and to run to the west side of Fishguard Bay.

[18] The Waterford and Wexford Railway was engaged in improving the harbour facilities at Rosslare, and negotiations took place to combine the activities on both sides of the ferry crossing.

[citation needed] Shortly before this took place Rowlands and Cartland negotiated to purchase the derelict Maenclochog Railway in 1894 for £50,000.

[citation needed] In 1896 the FBR&P submitted even more ambitious schemes to Parliament, to reach Aberdare and make junctions with the LNWR, the Midland Railway and the GWR en route.

Much of the alignment of the new direct line was to follow Brunel's original Fishguard route, but a start was delayed and certain deviations were authorised by the Great Western Railway (New Works) Act 1903.[which?]

[25] A modified version of the so-called bouncing bomb was developed after the famous Dam Busters raid (Operation Chastise) for land use.

Evidently the testing was not decisive, for the line was reopened after repairs later in World War II between Puncheston and Clynderwen and closed finally on 16 May 1949.