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

From Cardiff the line rises throughout its entire length, but in the course of its ascent to the mountainous country of the north of Glamorganshire, the enormous mineral and passenger traffic of the line has had to be carried, locomotives and all, up and down the Aberdare junction by means of ropes and a stationary engine at the top of the hill. The rope was coiled on and off a circular drum, with its axle crossing the railway, and supported on each side by two substantial towers of masonry. This incline, with its ropes and drums, is as well known and famous in Wales as the rope travelling of the Blackwell Railway to the older inhabitants of London.

For years the contrivance for pulling the trains up into the Welsh mountains worked well without any accident of note, except upon one occasion when the axle broke and let a mineral train down with a run, without doing further damage. In working the trains up and down this incline the plan adopted was never to attach a weight of more than thirty tons to either end of the wire rope, the long mineral trains being divided before making the descent, and a sufficient number of wagons always kept at the top of the incline to counterpoise to some extent those to be drawn up.

The short passenger trains of the line were always drawn up without being separated and without delay, but four wagons of iron or iron ore were the utmost the rope was allowed to bear, and to these about ten empty wagons would form a good working balance, although the steam power applied to the drums enabled very unequal weights at the two ends of the rope to be used.

The fact that all the minerals and iron of Merthyr had to be carried down to the sea caused the daily downward traffic on the incline to be more than double the weight of that brought up, unless in a very few exceptional circumstances, so that, as a rule, very little work was required from the stationary engine.

A fine instance this of the indestructibility of force, as the potential energy acquired by the coal at the expense of the owners in raising it by the consumption of fuel and steam power at the mouth of the pits caused a saving of fuel and work to the stationary engine at the Aberdare junction incline, and helped increase the receipts of the Taff Vale Railway Company. Much mineral produce from the Rhondda Valley has had, during the last two years, to be carried up the incline, so that the economy of power is not now so great as in former times.