RAILWAY AND CANAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY

TRAMROAD GROUP

Occasional Paper 161

Tramroad locomotives in south Wales: addenda and corrigenda

Harry Paar, Harry Jack, Roger Kidner, Robin Simmonds

(A portmanteau Paper to bring together a number of additions and corrections to my checklist of early locomotives which was circulated in the last batch of Papers.)

Penydarren Tramroad (entries 1-8)

Extracts from Iron in the Making: Iron Company letters 1782-1860 ; ed. Madeleine Elsas ( Record Office, 1960): p.152 1839. 'One of the Dowlais Engines got off the road by Ynis Owen', and a further reference to 'engines' in the plural. p.174/5 1822. George Overton supplies details of iron sleepers, dovetail sleepers. He saw 'Trevithick's engine leading trains 20 years ago'. p.182 1832. Guest & Co ask Robert Stephenson & Co for prices for locomotives. p.182 1832. R. Jones of Birmingham offers to supply a four-wheel locomotive to Guest. 'I am now making one for Mr. Bailey of Nanty Glo to the above weight [4½ tons].' p.184 1838. Agreement to deliver a six-wheel locomotive and tender from Neath Abbey to Dowlais at the same price as received for the Mountaineer engine about four years ago. The haulier was William Baker.

Tredegar Iron Company (entries 12-23)

There was an article in Locomotive , vol. 21 (1915), January and February, on the Sirhowy Railway, including the Tredegar Iron Company's locomotives, but I doubt if it adds anything to what has appeared since.

Harry Paar

Rhymney Iron Co (entries 42-45)

The LNWR sold two engines to 'Benjamin Greene, director of the Railway' in 1847. The sale was minuted at the LNWR Southern Division Locomotive Committee's meeting of 9 September 1847. The actual date of the sale is not given, but as the previous meeting was held on 10 August it would probably have been some time between then and 7 September when a list of engines includes these two as 'sold'. 161/2

Greene paid £1050 for the two: they had been valued by the LNWR at £800 for the pair. They were ex- Aylesbury Railway no 1 and ex-London & Birmingham Railway no 8. Both were 2-2-0s of Edward Bury's design, with inside iron bar-frame and a copper-clad domed firebox.

L&BR no 8 was built by Edward Bury & Co, Clarence Foundry, Liverpool and was delivered in September 1838; Aylesbury no 1 was built by Benjamin Hick & Co, Soho Foundry, Bolton and was delivered in January 1840.

The basic dimensions were:

Cylinders (2 inside) 12' x 18' Driving wheels 5' 6' dia. Leading wheels 4' 0' dia. Wheelbase 5' 6' Total heating surface 464 sq. ft Weight 9 tons 16¾ cwt.

Each had a wooden, four-wheeled tender.

I suppose they would have to have had their flanges removed for working on a plateway (or maybe the Rhymney Co had started their conversion to edge rails by then?), but I have no details of their history after they left the LNWR.

Blaina Iron Works (entries 35-36)

Two more of the same class, London & Birmingham Railway nos 5 and 9, were minuted on 9 March 1848 as having been sold to Blaina Iron Works. They are shown as still 'for sale' in a list of 8 March, which might mean they were actually sold on the 8th or 9th, but I wouldn't bank on it, because the Locomotive Superintendent, James E. McConnell (or his scribe) made a lot of mistakes in his lists. The previous Locomotive Committee meeting was on 12 February so the sale would have been after that date.

No 5 had been valued at £300, no 9 at £500, but Blaina Iron Works paid £1050 for the pair. Both had been built by Edward Bury & Co, no 5 delivered in July and no 9 in October 1838. Dimensions as above.

They were used by F. Levick & Co of Cwm Celyn & Blaina Ironworks on the Western Valley section of the Monmouthshire Railway between Newport and Blaina as nos 1 and 2 until the regular Monmouthshire engines came into use in August 1849.

These four are the only sales to south Wales in the LNWR Southern Division records up to 1850. I have covered them in my locomotive history of the LNWR Southern Division which the RCTS are publishing in 2001.

Harry Jack

Hirwaun Common (entries 49-50)

It was William Crawshay junior, not Francis, who provided the Gurney engines for the Common Railway. Actually, they were not built for him, being surplus road drags from London. The first at least arrived at on its own wheels and was converted in the colliery workshop.

Lord Bute's Agent wrote twice in 1825 urging the use of locomotives for moving coal with no apparent response. In 1830 William Crawshay senior wrote from his Stoke Newington home to advise that using 161/3 locomotives would be too expensive in workshop costs. William junior's expressed wish to construct two further engines in 1831 (OP 23a) was no doubt squashed by William senior.

Roger Kidner

Morfa Colliery, Taibach (new entry)

The following extract from A History of Taibach to 1872 by Richard Morgan, translated from the original Welsh by A. Leslie Evans and published by the Port Talbot Historical Society in 1987 (pp 16-17), appears to suggest that there was at least one engine working on the Morfa tramroad by 1850, thereby preceding the well known Caesar and Tubal Cain by about five years. I believe this booklet is still in print and available from the P.T.H.S.

After the above pit [i.e. Morfa] was completed another pit was sunk less than two hundred yards away to the south - the Abbot Pit - which was to serve as an air shaft to the shaft from which the coal was raised. We clearly remember witnessing the opening of the new Morfa tramroad in 1849, and the first wagons which carried the coal along it. An old friend of the writer sat astride the coal, waving a red flag to the accompaniment of tumultuous cheers from a huge crowd.

A short time afterwards we had the pleasure of inspecting the fire-eating monster. It was busily engaged travelling to and from Taibach to Morfa, conveying great quantities of coal to the works, and before the end of 1850 Mr Vivian was able to spare hundreds of tons for export to help other places.

Robin Simmonds