Volume Three - The Pontoon Era - The new pontoon commissioning and its early use . . .

1908 - The Taff Vale Company and the Furure - "The wondrous growth in population and industry in the Valleys of South Wales during the past half century shows no signs of slackening, whilst the consumption of the famous Welsh Smokeless Steam Coal is ever expanding, and new collieries are being sunk, and extensions of existing collieries are in progress, to meet the prospective demand.

Within the past few years millions have been spent in improved plant and machinery designed to facilitate and increase the production of the mines in the area which the Taff Vale Railway serves. With an inevitable development of traffic in prospect, the Directors and Management of the Taff Vale Railway have made, and are making, full preparations to deal with it.

The improvements already effected in Penarth Dock are to be followed by further extensions, both in the lines and sidings for handling, and in the machinery and tipping appliances for shipping, the coal. The railways of the Company and the railway stock, both for goods and passengers, have been subjected to a similar process of modernisation.

The net revenue has for many years been largely in excess of the amounts distributed as dividends, with the result that the financial stability of the Taff Vale Company is exceptional amongst British railways. The highest dividend paid in the country, with strong financial reserves, with permanent ways, rolling stock, docks, and equipment thoroughly up to date, prepared for and capable of handling the heavy increase in traffic which is bound to come, and with a management which has so brilliantly proved its ability to guide the affairs of the undertaking, the Taff Vale Railway Company is assured of a prolonged future of increasing prosperity." South Wales Coal Annual [039] 1908.

	An unknown ship under repair on the pontoon in this postcard image taken around 1913.