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

The miles travelled were : -

The total number of locomotives now in use upon the line is 67, and the vans and wagons of all descriptions 2,750.

The mineral produce of central Wales, on reaching the port of Cardiff by the Taff Vale Railway, is shipped at the Bute and Penarth docks. The former are the private property of the Marquis of Bute, to whom they are the source of an enormous annual income. The Penarth docks were originated about ten years ago by twenty-five gentlemen, all owners of mines and collieries in Glamorganshire and the neighbouring counties, who formed themselves into the "Ely Tidal Harbour Company."

This company obtained powers from Parliament in 1856 to construct a tidal harbour on the river Ely at Penarth, and make a railway five and a half miles long, from the harbour to a junction with the Taff Vale line, near Llandaff. Another Act was obtained in 1857 for the construction of the Penarth dock, and a railway two miles in length from the dock to the tidal harbour. ??

The Penarth Harbour, Dock, and Railway Company then entered into a contract with Messrs. Rennie and Logan, who agreed to construct the railway and tidal harbour, neither of which were difficult undertakings, and both were open for traffic in 1858. The harbour has ten coal drops, each capable of shipping 150 tons each per hour, also three steam ballast cranes, capable of discharging 60 tons per hour.

Messrs. Smith and Knight contracted in 1858 to construct the dock and the dock railway, but after the works were commenced legal proceedings were instituted in the Court of Chancery to settle disputes between the contractors and the company, the result being that the latter took possession of the unfinished dock in 1861, and afterwards carried on the work themselves.