Volume Nine - Pre-Victorian to the present day - even more aspects - The Introduction of 20 ton Coal Wagons - 1923   . . .

These 20-ton steel construction wagons had a number of variants designed at the drawing offices at the GWR engineering headquarters at Swindon according to purpose and ownership but each became upgraded ultimately to 21-ton capacity. So far as the coal export trade was concerned the wooden 10 and 12-ton capacity wagons continued to be utilised alongside the new innovation even as the industry and trade declined through the advantages of oil as a fuel.

	1924 - A GWR drawing of a variant of the 20-ton wagon for colliery to docks working dating from a decade later which has already been upgraded to a capacity of 21-ton for conveyance of locomotive coal.
	1941 - A British Railways poster suggesting that we should keep those wagons moving.
	1927 - Two examples of the use of 20-ton coal wagons for the companies of Stockwood, Rees & Co. Ltd., Coal Merchants and Shipowners of Swansea and the Ebbw Vale Steel, Iron & Coal Co. Ltd..

In the case of Penarth Dock, closure to the coal trade came in 1936, reopening for the war effort of WWII in the years 1939-1945 and thereafter closing to the export of coal forever.