The Rumney Railway in

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...

was a

plateway A plateway is an early kind of railway, tramway or wagonway, where the rails are made from cast iron. They were mainly used for about 50 years up to 1830, though some continued later. Plateways consisted of "L"-shaped rails, where the flange ...

built to connect the ironworks at Rhymney to the Monmouthshire Canal Company's tramroad near

Newport, Wales Newport ( cy, Casnewydd; ) is a city and county borough in Wales, situated on the River Usk close to its confluence with the Severn Estuary, northeast of Cardiff. With a population of 145,700 at the 2011 census, Newport is the third-largest a ...

providing a connection the wharves at the

Newport Docks Newport Docks is the collective name for a group of docks in the city of Newport, south-east Wales. By the eighteenth century there were a number of wharves on the west shore of the River Usk; iron and coal were the principal outward traffic. Th ...

. The line was opened in 1826. It was later converted to a standard gauge

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

History

The company was incorporated in 1825 and the line, engineered by George Overton, opened the following year worked by horses. The line ran down the east side of the River Rhymney to Machen where the route left the river to head east towards Newport. It made a junction with the Monmouthshire line at the top end of that part of the company's route, known as the Park Mile, on its way to the shipping places on the River Usk at Newport. Sir Charles Morgan built and maintained the section where it ran through the park of his

Tredegar House Tredegar House ( Welsh: ''Tŷ Tredegar'') is a 17th-century Charles II-era mansion on the southwestern edge of Newport, Wales. For over five hundred years it was home to the Morgan family, later Lords Tredegar; one of the most powerful and infl ...

. The line operated in a similar way to a toll road and traders introduced steam locomotives in the 1840s. In 1856

Crawshay Bailey Crawshay Bailey (1789 – 9 January 1872) was an English industrialist who became one of the great iron-masters of Wales. Early life Bailey was born in 1789 in Great Wenham, Suffolk, the son of John Bailey, of Wakefield and his wife Susannah ...

purchased a plateway locomotive from the Monmouthshire company for the Rumney Railway, implying that the company was operating the line with its own locomotives. The Monmouthshire company converted its lines in the Western Valleys to standard gauge in the 1850s. In 1861 Lord Tredegar (Chairman) and Crawshay Bailey (Director) obtained an Act of Parliament to reincorporate the Rumney Railway as a railway company, with powers to reconstruct the line as a standard gauge railway. Also obtained were powers to make a branch to join the

Rhymney Railway The Rhymney Railway was a railway company in South Wales, founded to transport minerals and materials to and from collieries and ironworks in the Rhymney Valley of South Wales, and to docks in Cardiff. It opened a main line in 1858, and a limite ...

at Caerphilly and to sell or lease the undertaking to either the Monmouthshire Railway or the

West Midland Railway The West Midland Railway was an early British railway company. It was formed on 1 July 1860 by a merger of several older railway companies and amalgamated with the Great Western Railway on 1 August 1863. It was the successor to the Oxford, Worc ...

. However, little was done to improve the line and it remained a plateway until it was acquired by the Brecon and Merthyr Railway by its Act of 28 July 1863. The reconstructed line was finally passed as safe for passengers by the Board of Trade Inspector on his third visit, and opened to passenger traffic through to the Monmouthshire Railway's Newport (Dock Street) station on 14 June 1865.

References

External links

Rumney Railway at railbrit.co.uk
{{Historical Welsh railway companies Industrial railways in Wales Early Welsh railway companies Great Western Railway constituents Rail transport in Newport, Wales Railway lines in Wales History of Monmouthshire Railway lines opened in 1826 4 ft 2 in gauge railways in Wales Horse-drawn railways 1826 establishments in Wales