Volume Eleven - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - some more aspects - The Taff Vale Railway and Docks - 'The Engineer' Article of 1866 . . .

The Engineer periodical published the following article within its edition of 2nd November 1866. [015]

THE TAFF VALE RAILWAY AND DOCKS.

Last year a history and description of the large ironworks at Merthyr appeared in the pages of The Engineer, and the following account of the means by which the minerals and iron of the richest mining districts of central Wales are carried down to the rising port of Cardiff, and there shipped to all parts of the world, will prove a fitting sequel to the series of articles already mentioned.

The Glamorganshire Canal was opened in 1798, and for forty-three years was the only outlet to the sea for the coal and iron of the Merthyr and Aberdare districts, unless conveyance by the ancient turnpike road through Caerphilly were selected. The canal had forty locks, and some parts of it were short of water during the summer months, so that it became blocked up with the great tide of traffic. A tramroad was made from Merthyr to a point where the water was more abundant, but this gave relief only for a season.

At last the freighters and proprietors of the tramroads determined, in 1834, to make a through railway to Cardiff. In 1835 they surveyed the route, in 1836 obtained an Act of Parliament authorising the carrying out of the works, in 1837 began to construct the line, and the Taff Vale Railway was finished and opened in May, 1841. From that time to the present it has held its position as one of the best paying lines in the kingdom, the dividends declared for many years past amounting sometimes to 9, but generally to 10 per cent.

.By the original Act of Parliament the company was empowered to raise a capital of £300,000 in £100 shares, and by loan an additional sum of £100,000. A second Act, passed in 1837, enabled the company to make short branch lines to several ironworks, and a third Act, passed in 1840, empowered the company to raise an additional capital of £165,000 in shares, and £55,000 more by loan.