Volume One - Into the Victorian Age - The official opening of the docks . . .

The Penarth Harbour, Dock, and Railway Company then entered into a contract with Messrs. Rennie and Logan, who agreed to construct the railway and tidal harbour, neither of which were difficult undertakings, and both were open for traffic in 1858. The harbour has ten coal drops, capable of shipping 150 tons each per hour, also three steam ballast cranes, capable of discharging 60 tons per hour.

Messrs. Smith and Knight contracted in 1858 to construct the dock and the dock railway, but after the works commenced legal proceedings were instituted in the Court of Chancery to settle disputes between the contractors and the company, the result being that the latter took possession of the unfinished dock in 1861, and afterwards carried on the works themselves.

The dock was opened last year, after many difficulties had been overcome in its construction, because the muddy character of the soil afforded no good foundation for the necessary masonry, which is consequently mostly built on piles. The new dock is 2,100 ft. long and 370 ft. wide, and the basin 400 ft. by 330 ft. The lock is 270 ft. long by 60 ft. wide, and the sea entrance is also 60 ft. in width, with a depth of water of from 25 ft. to 35 ft, according to the height of the tides.

The branch from the Taff Vale Railway reaches the docks at a height of from 18 ft. to 19 ft. above the level of the edge of the dock, and the wagons are brought perpendicularly over the edge of the vessel about to receive coals. The roads from the line incline to the drops, so that the wagons run down by their own weight, and after being disburdened at the shoots are sent back by other roads, which also incline downwards.

There are twelve drops altogether, eight of them being calculated to ship 150 tons each per hour, but four of them are double drops, each arranged to shoot coal into the same vessel at the same time at the rate of 300 tons per hour.

Mr. George Fisher, the engineer to the Taff Vale Railway, states that sometimes vessels have come in at one tide and gone out in twelve hours with 1,000 tons of coal on board.

Not only is care taken to expedite the departure of ships, because every tide a steamer saves is calculated by the freighters to be equal to threepence per ton on the coal, but extra care is taken to ship that coal in good condition.