Rhondda Railways

The completion of the Taff Vale Railway throughout the whole length of the Rhondda Fawr Valleys in 1856 brought a new period in Rhondda's history.

By March 1849 a new branch line between Eirw and Ynyshir was completed and by May of the same year it had reached Dinas. By this date the Taff Vale Railway had the necessary permission and land to construct a double line throughout the length of both Valleys. However, they delayed these costly extensions until the true nature of the mineral wealth was known.

Steam coal was proven in the Upper Rhondda Fawr in 1853 and the Taff Vale Railway Company was extended as far as Gelligaled by December 1855 and reached the Bute Merthyr Colliery in Treherbert on 7^th. August 1856.

Coal traffic for the start was considerable and it was estimated that 390,000 tons were transported along this single track of mineral line by June 1857. As a result, in October 1858 the Taff Vale Railway Company resolved to construct a seven-arch viaduct over the River Rhondda at Pontypridd to double the track from Pontypridd to Ystrad and
to extend the Rhondda Fach Branch Railway from Ynyshir to Blaenllechau in the hope that Steam coal would be found.

By 1862 the Taff Vale Railway extended to Treherbert in the Rhondda Fawr and Ferndale in the Rhondda Fach. It is unquestionable that these extensions were an important factor in attracting coal speculators to both valleys in the third quarter of the C19th. Originally both these lines were used exclusively for mineral traffic, however, with the rapid increase in population came a demand for passenger services.

In 1858 stations were built at Porth and Ystrad and on 4^th.February 1861 the line was opened for passenger services as far as Ystrad. On 7th. January the service was extended as far as Treherbert and in the Rhondda Fach during the summer of 1876. At first only 3 trains a day were run, but by 1914 this extended to 20 trains a day running over four tracks.

It was the Taff Vale Railway and the Bute West Dock at Cardiff [opened in 1839] that enabled the Rhondda Valleys to become an important coal exporting area. In 1846 the Taff Vale Railway and the Marquis of Bute entered into a contract for the protection of their several interests, but in the course of time, this began to exercise a very harmful influence upon the economic development of the Valleys.

The arrangement, briefly, gave the Taff Vale Railway a monopoly in the carriage of minerals to the Bute West Dock. In 1849 this arrangement was made formal by the leasing of the dock to the T.V.R. Co. for a period of 999 years.

Two attempts were made to break the Taff Vale Railway stranglehold. On 5^th.. July 1857 the Ely Valley Railway Company was incorporated and was to be an extension of the South Wales Railway at Llantrisant to Penygraig. The line was completed in 1860 and in 1877 the line was extended to the Cambrian Collieries at Clydach Vale.

The Rhondda Valley and Hirwaun Junction Railway Company was incorporated in August 1867. The line projected was one from Treherbert to the Vale of Neath Railway near Hirwaun. However, the scheme was opposed and the Taff Vale Railway retained a monopoly in the carriage of minerals.

In the 1870 the demand for the 'matchless' steam coal of the Rhondda Valleys increased at an astonishing rate and the railway and docks were caught unprepared. As early as 1873 David Davies [chief proprietor of the Ocean Collieries] pointed out the need for increased capacity.

As time went on the situation became progressively worse until 1880 when things came to a head. Output of steam coal depended upon two things, export demand and the transport facilities of the railways, the docks and shipping. Demand seemed to be insatiable but if transportation were not improved, it would only be able to expand as a slow rate.

In 1882, in an attempt to appease the freighters, the Bute Trustees presented a Bill to Parliament for a new dock together with a proposal that the Marquis of Bute should get an extra penny for all coal shipped from his docks.

Rhondda coal owners replied that if this Bill were passed then they would have to find an alternative port. They stated that in 1874 the total coal and coke exported from Cardiff and Penarth was 2,886,000 tons and this had risen to 7,774,828 tons in 1882. As there had been no extra dock accommodation, except the Roath Basin, there was frequently congestion at the dock. This resulted in 'short days' at Rhondda pits as no more coal could be sent to the ships. It was estimated that the Ocean Collieries at Cwmparc and Gelli stopped 68 times during this period. This was an average of 27 hours over a period of l0 weeks.

It was further calculated that based on an average output of 370 tons of coal an hour, it meant the loss of 9,990 tons or 40,000 tons in the period of a year.

It was not only at the docks that there was severe congestion. The railways also had their problems. It was not an infrequent occurrence for a coal train to take 23 hours to travel from the Ocean Collieries to Cardiff dock, a journey which should take about 3.5 hours. Also it could take something like 27 hours to get the empty wagons back to the collieries and this obviously had a knock-on effect.

It was not surprising that Rhondda Coal owners adopted a militant attitude and sought dock and railway accommodation elsewhere. By 1914 a number of new railways had been constructed connecting the Rhondda to Barry, Port Talbot, Swansea and Newport and the construction of this network of railways allowed for the complete industrialisation of the Rhondda Valleys.

The most important of these was the Barry Railway and Docks, built by Rhondda freighters at a cost of nearly £2,000,000. The project envisaged a new dock at Barry and a railway to connect it directly to the Rhondda without having to pass through the narrow gorge at Tongwynlais. On 18^th.. July 1889 the first load of Rhondda steam coal was loaded onto a ship at Barry Dock. The following table shows the importance of the new venture at Barry.

As a result a second dock was opened in 1898 and a third in 1914. On 16^th.March 1896 the main line between Porth and Barry was opened for passenger traffic.

On 2^nd. July 1890 the Rhondda Tunnel, a distance of 3,300 yards and the seventh longest in the U.K., was completed. After the completion of the Britton Ferry to Swansea link on 14th. December 1894 Treherbert was connected to the docks at Swansea.

However, Cardiff and Penarth expanded at a far greater rate than Swansea. Part of the reason for this was that Cardiff, Barry and Newport meant that a full trainload of coal would travel on a down gradient with the empty journey being on the up gradient. Swansea on the other hand meant that for at least part of the journey was on an up gradient. As a result Swansea only served those collieries at the top of the Rhondda Fawr.

By 1914 the Rhondda Valleys became the centre of a network of railways. Some have said that perhaps the Valleys were too well provided for in that being served by five independent railway companies there was the obvious duplication of track.

However, it did help cut-throat competition. For example, the announcement of the Barry Dock and Railway Bill in 1882 caused the Taff Vale Railway Co. to lower their charges from 0.875 d to 0.77d a ton per mile and to be further reduced in 1889 to 0.74d a ton per mile. When the new Barry Railway stated that it price would be 0.5d per ton per mile, the other companies had to follow suit.

Railways of the Rhondda Coalfield (1841-1914)