A group of volunteers from Romania have been helping restore the heritage of the Gwendraeth Valley Railway.
It is hoped the volunteers were able to gain new knowledge and understanding about the renovation of heritage railways to take back to projects in their own country.
The Gwendraeth Railway Society hosted the visit as part of their work to develop a Community Heritage Railway in the Gwendraeth Valley.
The voluntary organisation was created to support a showpiece Community Heritage Railway along the full length of the former Burry Port and Gwendraeth Valley Railway, linking communities and visitor attractions along its route.
When operational, the railway will run parallel with cycle tracks, footpaths and bridleways, and will hopefully see restored historic locomotives and carriages rolling across the tracks once more.
The Romanian volunteers are embarking on a similar project in the Transylvania region.
During their week-long stay in Carmarthenshire the group were actively involved with track renovation and vegetation clearance in the Gwendraeth Valley, helped with the restoration of Pontyates Station, and learned about steam and diesel locomotive servicing at other key heritage sites across south Wales.           
The project, organised by the New Europe Heritage Railway Trust (NEHRT), aims to demonstrate the best of heritage rail and community partnership working by focusing on current heritage rail projects in Wales and applying the lessons to similar projects in former communist countries in eastern Europe.
Stuart Thomas, Chair of the Gwendraeth Railway Society, said: “The group from the Sibiu-Agnita Railway are developing an exciting and ambitious project to preserve the social and cultural heritage of their region.
“These are exactly the same objectives we have with the development of our own Gwendraeth Railway Project which has its own unique local identity. We have been able to learn from one and other and have been able to forge strong links between the two projects.”       
Carmarthenshire County Council vice chair, Cllr Tyssul Evans, met the group at work.
He said: “The volunteers from Romania have been working very hard alongside our own local volunteers to help with this massive renovation project.
“Their hard work will help us to achieve our own goals, as well as giving them knowledge to take back to their own projects, so it has been extremely worthwhile.”
The renovation of the Gwendraeth Valley Railway has gathered steam recently with a grant award from Tidy Towns - a partnership project between Keep Wales Tidy and local authorities, which is funded by the Welsh Assembly Government - to begin clearance work at the old station site in Pontyates and to restore the station to its former glory.
The group holds a community licence from Network Rail enabling clearance work along the mothballed rail corridor and to realise environmental benefits for the local communities.
The route is unique and famous amongst railway enthusiasts in the UK as it follows the route of the oldest canal in Wales, dating back to the dawn of the industrial revolution in 1765, and claims the oldest railway bridge in Wales (and second oldest in the world) near Carway.