Volume Six - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - Select Aspects - The Penarth Harbour Dock and Railway - Railway World Article - 1964 . . .

The Dock Offices were an imposing building overlooking the dock entrance, as also was the adjoining Marine Hotel owned by the Dock and Railway Co. There was also an array of hydraulic cranes on the north side of the dock to deal with general cargo, together with the usual transit sheds. The South Wales Public Wharf Co. owned two wharves with jetties and hydraulic cranes and operated its own locomotive on the north side of the Tidal Harbour. There was a Slipway and Gridiron for ship repair on the south side, together with a floating pontoon dry dock, with an adjoining engineering works. The lines to the north and south sides of the dock branched from the Penarth line at Cogan Junction, where Penarth Dock station was built; a large locomotive shed was erected behind its down platform. The branch to the Tidal Harbour left the Penarth line at Grangetown Junction and ran southwards for 1½ miles to terminate at the coal tips and wharves on the north side of the harbour. There were coal storage sidings parallel with the running lines for the whole length of the Harbour line, which was on the embankment. About ½ mile from the junction a branch ran steeply down the side of the embankment to cross Ferry Road and serve a large industrial estate and the south end of Grangetown Gas Works, which was built inside the angle formed by the main Penarth line and the Harbour line. A branch on the other side of the Harbour line served the Windsor Slipway & Engineering works on the west side of Cardiff Harbour. The Harbour line was fully signaled in Taff days, but with the falling off of traffic, the G.W.R. converted it to permissive working and reduced the signalmen in Grangetown box from two to one.

Ferry Road ran parallel to the Harbour line and led to a passenger ferry across the mouth of the harbour. In 1900 the P.H.D. & R. built a passenger subway of cast-iron tunnel segments under the Harbour to replace the ferry and a toll of 1d was charged for many years.

Although Penarth Dock diverted a large amount of coal traffic from Cardiff, coal exports expanded at such a rate that they continued to outstrip the available port facilities. So concerned was a group of industrialists led by famous David Davies of Llandinam that they decided to build their own dock and connecting railway. This, the Barry Dock & Railway Co., was incorporated in 1884 with a well-sited dock at Barry and a direct main line northwards to join the Taff Vale at Trehafod, in the heart of the rich Rhondda coalfield. The Barry Railway then built in 1888 what it described as its "Cardiff branch", which joined the main line at Cadoxton with the Penarth line at Cogan Junction, and commenced a service of passenger trains from Barry to its own station at Cogan, near Penarth Dock station, to which passengers could change to continue their journey to Cardiff by the Taff Vale Railway.