Volume Twelve - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - further aspects - Railway Magazine - Interview with Mr. Ammon Beasley - TVR - 1898 . . . .

"Those details are most interesting.

"Those details are Despite the severe competition in South Wales, I understand that the Taff Vale Railway more than holds its own. Are not new enterprises, both in connection with dock and railway extension, now under consideration?"

"In a sense, yes ; but the competition is very severe, and further competition is threatened - not always, I fear, in the interests of the freighter. I claim that those interests are thoroughly well served by the Taff Vale Company, and that he is satisfied is evident from the fact that the traffic, particularly coal, is constantly growing.

Ten years ago 9,505,975 tons of coal were carried over the railway, whereas in 1897 the quantity carried amounted to 13,869,439 tons. Of course, considering that the line altogether is only 120 miles in length, and that only about 60 miles are coal-carrying, this tonnage is many times greater per mile than that of any other railway in the Kingdom, and, therefore, in the world.

There are only three or four railways in the Kingdom which carry a greater gross tonnage of coal and coke - the London and North Western, the Midland, and North Eastern, for example ; but the mileage of the Taff Vale Railway is absolutely infinitesimal compared with giant concerns like these.

The Great Western, too, carries a greater aggregate tonnage than the Taff Vale, but only, I think, by some few hundred thousand tons, although its mileage is twenty times greater than that of the Taff Vale."

Section of Main Line of Taff Vale Railway.