Volume Two - The Era of Optimism, Investment & Development - Growth of coal exports . . .

For very many years the original tips fairly adequately met the requirements of the Dock, but the rapid development of the South Wales Coalfield rendered expansion absolutely necessary; and from the early nineties (1890's) up to the present time (c.1905) the shipping facilities have undergone constant improvement, the majority of the tips having been erected in recent years.

Three of these fixed coal tips (high-level), erected on the Dock by Messrs. Armstrong & Co., marked a great advance on the old order. Capable of dealing at a high speed with wagons of a gross weight of 22 tons, they can tip at any height between 3 and 37 feet above the quay-level, or 47 feet above the water-level, when there is 32 feet depth on the dock sill. Like the others, they are worked by hydraulic power, and each is equipped with a two-ton antibreakage crane, double screens, and movable shutes.

A still more notable piece of enterprise, however, was the construction, in 1899-1900, of the four movable tips on the north side of the basin, which when constructed represented the last word in the application so far as it concerned the coal trade of scientific knowledge to the practical purposes of rapid shipment. Built of steel, these tips were designed to fulfil the following requirements: To lift a loaded wagon of 25 tons gross weight 45 feet above the quay, to tip the contents of the wagon into the shute, return the wagon to the quay level, and run it off the cradle within thirty seconds. In actual use these conditions are fulfilled, and in the four tips, capable as they are of being brought into service simultaneously in the loading of a single vessel, the Penarth Docks possess one of their greatest assets.