Volume Ten - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - Even more aspects - Penarth Dock and Llandough Fields Reclamation Report : 1989 . . .

Brief History :

Prior to the end of the eighteenth century, the market town of Cardiff had seen little change for generations. In the last decade of that century, developments began with the construction of the Glamorganshire Canal, intended to carry iron from Merthyr Tydfil to Cardiff. For forty years the Canal, with its 50 locks, was the sole means of transport between Merthyr Tydfil and Cardiff apart from a turnpike road. In order to overcome congestion and inability of the Canal to take increased traffic, two important and related events occurred. The Taff Vale Railway Company was founded in 1835 by the ironmasters and the West Bute Dock, or Bute Ship Canal as it was then known, was built by the second Marquis of Bute and opened in 1839. These two developments, coupled with the mining of rich and extensive coal seams, triggered vast changes in Cardiff. Such were the changes that by the end of the century, Cardiff was referred to as "the coal metropolis of the world".

Despite the opposition of the Canal Company, the Taff Vale Railway Company Act received Royal Assent on 21 June 1836 and became the first public railway of any commercial importance in the Principality. The preamble to the Bill had set out the proposed lines from Merthyr Tydfil to Cardiff and included "another branch leading to or near Cogan Pill on the West Bank of the River Ely". However, following opposition, the Act stipulated that the branch to Cogan Pill was not to be constructed until other lines were completed. Cogan Pill was the name of the building that still stands above the River Ely, overlooking the estuary; it is now a steak house called 'Barons Court'.

Predictably, Lord Bute led objections to the Cogan Pill branch as it would give rise to shipping facilities competing with his own dock and he managed to persuade the Taff Vale Railway Company not to develop the Cogan Pill scheme, in return for a lease of part of his Bute West Dock.

The Taff Vale main line was opened in 1840. It was a Standard gauge line, on the recommendation of Brunel who envisaged slow speeds on winding tracks in hilly country and so did not propose the broad gauge that he favoured elsewhere. A maximum speed of 12 mph had been stated in the Railway Act.