In the previous Branch Lines, The East Glamorgan Railway: An Extraordinarily Audacious Plan, I looked at an incident in the history of The Barry Railway where the company attempted to siphon off traffic bound for Cardiff Docks. The East Glamorgan controversy took place during the 1890s. Ten years earlier, however, a line was built to take coal traffic away from Cardiff, – but in the opposite direction towards Newport! The incident I want to focus on has an Ealing Comedy air about it, involving pig-headedness, bureaucratic intransigence and bowler hatted stubbornness. The 1884 Bassaleg stand-off!
During the 1860s a shift started to take place in the nature of industrial exports from South Wales. While coal had been exported from dockyards for decades, the amounts were relatively small and most coal was consumed locally in ironworks. Realising that larger profits could be made from focussing on the mining and export of coal rather than iron-making, South Wales companies scaled up their colliery expansion. For example in 1873 the assets of the famous Tredegar Iron Company were taken over by a new undertaking The Tredegar Iron and Coal Company.
The Pontypridd, Caerphilly and Newport Railway is born
As a response, the docks at Newport had also been expanding since the 1860s, with the brand new Alexandra Dock opening in 1875, temporarily becoming the largest in South Wales. Promoted in 1878 by J.C. Parkinson of the Alexandra (Newport and South Wales) Docks and Railway (A(NSW)D&R) and Sir George Elliot of Powell Duffryn Collieries was the Pontypridd, Caerphilly & Newport Railway (PC&NR). The intention was simply to create a route to ship coal from the Aberdare and Rhondda Valleys through Newport Docks. As an indication of why such a solution was sought, Grace’s Guide to British Industrial History states that by 1880 a train typically took 23 hours to travel from the Ocean Colliery (then called Harris Navigation) to Bute Dock in Cardiff, and a further 27 hours for the empty wagons to return.
An Act of 8 August 1878 incorporated the PC&NR. This authorised a railway of 5 1/2 miles from a junction with the Taff Vale Railway (TVR) to the south of Pontypridd Station to another junction with the Rhymney Railway near Caerphilly. Then, running powers over the Caerphilly Branch of the Brecon and Merthyr through Machen to Bassaleg Junction would take trains to a short stretch of GWR lines which would be used to access the Alexandra Dock tracks.
Later, by a further Act of 2nd August 1883, the PC&NR was authorised to build some two miles of railway itself between Bassaleg Junction and the Alexandra Dock Company’s line, should the owners of the Tredegar Park Mile Railway not build it themselves. But this was in the future and in any case, Lord Tredegar had a vested interest in Newport Docks. In the meantime the cooperation of the GWR was needed!
(Photogtapher not recorded)
The PC&NR was a relative rarity in early South Wales railway history in that, for various reasons, it enjoyed the support of its rivals! One reason was quite clear. A train running the full length from Aberdare to Newport would use the tracks of no less than six companies beside the PC&NR itself. Extra traffic meant everyone had a piece of the action, even if it was a small one! The Taff Vale, however, had an extra incentive to be helpful. In the hope that this would lead to the PC&NR becoming part of its own system, the TVR contracted to actually work the PC&NR coal trains to the Alexandra Docks.
The first coal train sets off for Newport
The first train ran on 7th July 1884 with the TVR hauled load of 27 coal wagons starting from Powell Duffryn Collieries in Aberdare. The train picked up a Brecon and Merthyr banker loco at Caerphilly as it entered B&M tracks to give assistance and emphasise the collaborative nature of the journey. But an apparently innocuous report in the Western Mail indicated that things did not go according to plan:
“THE PONTYPRIDD, CAERPHILLY AND NEWPORT RAILWAY
Western Mail, 7th July 1884
In consequence of an unexpected hitch, it is doubtful that this line will after all be open to-day. Mr. J. C. Parkinson has left Newport with the intention, if possible of forcing the opening on.”
What was this mysterious unexpected hitch? All had gone well until Bassaleg when the train came to an abrupt stop. It had reached the junction with the Great Western metals, at which point the manager of the Merthyr and Brecon Railway on whose lines the train was currently standing presented a “permit” to the official of the GWR manning the junction.
The stand-off!
The railway historian Derek Barrie described the situation in the South Wales Volume of his Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain:
“Alfred Henshaw, the B & M traffic manager, (who was later to become the Alexandra’s general manager) produced a ‘permit’ the validity of which was claimed under the B & M’s running powers over the Park Mile to Newport. This document was rejected on the grounds that it could not cover a movement arranged by the PC & N and engined by the Taff Vale!“
Barrie (1980, p106)
What happened next was reported by Western Mail the next day:
“He returned it [the permit], and said he could not allow the train to enter the line of his company. The train was moved to the limit of the boundary and left there, whilst most of the company proceeded to Newport to wait the result of a telegraphic dispatch to the head-office of the Great Western Railway Company at Paddington.“
The Western Mail, 8th July 1884
A swift resolution? Not quite!
A bureaucratic impasse which would surely be resolved with the swift return of a telegraph from GWR HQ. It was in such expectation that Henshaw along with the other dignitaries retired to Newport. But, of course this was railway politics! It was to take over a week before the directors of the Great Western gave permission for the coal train to proceed to Alexandra Dock. The South Wales Daily News, however, warned that this was just a one-off solution and a long term resolution of the problem still remained:
“The opening of the Newport, Caerphilly, and Pontypridd Railway was thus completed, though only by the courtesy of the Great Western, and on the understanding that no more mineral trains would be allowed to pass over the coveted golden mile until the negotiations which are understood to be still pending: are concluded.”
The South Wales Daily News, 17th July 1884
The pending negotiations were to take a further week before an agreement was reached for running powers. Harold Morgan records the date in his book South Wales Branch Lines:
“After a couple of weeks of negotiations the GWR gave way and the PC&NR coal trains began to run to the Alexandra Docks in earnest from 25 July 1884.”
Morgan (SWBL p.7)
A permanent solution: new track
The dispute of 1884 confirmed the need for the PC&NR to get on and action the Bill of 1883 which entailed a double track running alongside the Great Western (originally Monmouthshire Railway) line. Consequently, the necessary two miles of track were built and opened in April 1886.
As mentioned, the whole episode had the air of an Ealing comedy film from the 1950s! All the elements were there. Pompous officials, idiosyncratic bureaucracy and ‘little guys’ standing up for their interests while being trapped between powerful interests! Ultimately, however, the Great Western was to have the last laugh. In 1897 the Alexandra Dock company fully absorbed the PC&NR. The Railways Act 1921, however, determined that the A(N&SW)D&R was to be a constituent of a new enlarged Great Western Railway, which took effect from 25 March 1922.
Nevertheless, the 1884 Bassaleg stand-off was one of the more unusual episodes of South Wales railway history!
References
Barrie, D.S.M. (1980) Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain: v.12 South Wales Thomas and Leuchar
Morgan, H. (1984) South Wales Branch Lines Ian Allen
The South Wales Daily News, 17th July 1884
The Western Mail, 7th July 1884
The Western Mail, 8th July 1884