Volume Twelve - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - further aspects - The River Ely Iron Ore Wharf . . .

A publication of 1898 entitled 'Annals of coal mining and the coal trade the invention of the steam engine and the origin of the railway' written by Robert L. Galloway [1384] [499] commented as follows on the Penydarren innovation : -

This locomotive, or travelling engine, as Trevithick begins to call it, made two more journeys to the shipping place, conveying a load of 10 tons of iron each time. During the third journey it went off the road, and broke both axles. This brought its short and chequered career as a locomotive to an end. It was brought back to Pen-y-darran by horses, and converted into a stationary engine.

Imperfect as this early locomotive was, with its cast iron boiler, single cylinder, and flywheel, the difficulties with which its working was attended were more due to extraneous causes than to the machine itself. There were heavy gradients and sharp curves on the railway. The weight of the engine broke many of the cast iron rails ; and the hooks between the wagons likewise frequently gave way.

We do not hear of Trevithick proceeding with the construction of the smaller engine he had in contemplation, nor of any further attempts being made to apply steam locomotion on the Merthyr railway ; the experiments which had been made having doubtless sufficiently demonstrated that the road was not well adapted for this method of haulage.

A sketch of the cast-iron rail sections supported upon stone foundations of the Penydarren tramroad. [The world's railway, historical, descriptive, illustrative; by J. G. Pangborn - 1894] [499]