Volume Six - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - Select Aspects - Working the Ely Tidal Harbour . . .

Assuming the loading proceeded without difficulties, the ship would sail on the tide for Portishead power stations to feed the furnaces to raise steam, to turn the turbines and the generate electricity for the good folk of Bristol and district. Then the ship would make the return journey and the crew could fill their lungs yet again with the dust from the shimmering black diamonds, otherwise known as Welsh steam coal! The tips had been renumbered in the 1915 TVR track layout plan and several were no longer in use or had been removed. With the advent of the steamship, solid ballast was no longer necessary and was replaced by water since it could be pumped from the hold as and when necessary. Consequently, the ballast wharf became progressively redundant.

A warehouse was built at the rear of the wharf to support its change of use from handling ballast to becoming a general goods handling facility. However, the wharf and warehouse were destroyed by fire on the 17th September 1888 but subsequently rebuilt circa. 1890.

The South Wales Public Wharf & Transit Co. Ltd. entered into a private sidings agreement with the TVR from April 1887 so presumably its life as a goods depot commenced shortly afterwards. It was renamed the Victoria Wharf in time for the publication of the Cardiff Directory - Advertising Sheet of 1891-92. [180] An engine shed and further warehousing had been constructed by 1915 and only five tips remained in operation at that date. No 5 tip was removed in 1924 - 1927 and coal shipping facilities at the Ely Tidal Harbour were withdrawn in 1962, a mere 103 years after they commenced!

The iron ore wharf was used extensively from 1889 but with the growth of the petroleum industry the wharf began to serve the new Petroleum Storage and Transit works in 1900. The first consignment of fuel oil from Philadelphia having arrived by the s.s. Lux in 1890.

In the 1930's, a private sidings agreement between the GWR and Russian Oil Products permitted lines from the wharf to transport oil to and from the works. This later became the Regent Oil Co. in 1949 and then Esso Petroleum Co. Ltd, took over the agreement with British Railways in 1965. By 1976 the sidings were removed.