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

For this purpose an anti-breakage machine is employed, consisting of a kind of bucket with a hinged bottom, which catches the coals as they fall from each shoot and then carries them down into the hold of the vessel. On reaching the lower part of the vessel the bottom of the bucket opens, and coals are deposited without breakage to themselves or injury to the ship. In the ordinary way of work at the Penarth docks twenty wagons, of from six to ten tons each, are tipped in every hour at each shoot.

At another part of the dock are three ballast and iron cranes and a ten-ton lifting crane, and these, with all the machinery connected with the docks, are worked by hydraulic engines.

The engineering and general superintendence of the line and docks are deputed principally to Messrs. George Fisher, E. E. Page, and W. D. Bushell.

The whole of the works of the Penarth docks and the branch railway to the Taff Vale main line cost about £800,000, (equivalent to c.£97.4m in 2020) and were leased last year to the Taff Vale Railway Company, who guaranteed the original shareholders 4½ per cent. per annum upon the outlay they had made. The result has been a reduction in Taff Vale dividends from £10 to £9 per cent, but as the Penarth docks are newly opened it is expected that the lost ground will shortly be more than recovered.

For such a short line the number of trains is very large, amounting to 110 up and 111 down per day, all possible energy being exercised to ensure quick despatch and to facilitate the steam coal export trade from Cardiff.

1865 - 'On the occasion of the opening of the new Penarth Dock, the life-boat of the Institution stationed there was launched, and followed the first vessel that entered the dock. The boat attracted much attention.' - The Life-boat : Journal of the Royal National Life-Boat ... v.5,no.43-58 (Jan.1,1862-Oct.2,1865). [1024] [499] 2nd October 1865.