Volume Two - The Era of Optimism, Investment & Development - Investment in efficient coaling facilities at the dock . . .

The perfect method and apparent ease with which the whole thing was done with such remarkable dispatch, and without a single hitch occurring, won general admiration. The tips, which are movable and worked by hydraulic power, are built of steel, the main framings being 96ft. high. Every portion of the monster pieces of complex machinery is controlled by one man from the cabin on the east side of the tip.

All the machinery which has to work under pressure has been tested to carry. pressure not less than 2,000 lb. per square inch, while the working pressure is 750 lb. per square inch. Each of the four tips has been so constructed as to allow a loaded railway wagon to be placed on the cradle, lifted 45ft. above the quay, tipping the contents of the wagon into the shoot, returning the wagon to the quay level, and running it off the cradle within 30 seconds. Every tip is fitted with anti-breakage canes and patent despatch anti-breakage boxes, which are not in use anywhere else.

Another object of interest as a masterpiece of engineering skill was the tubular subway under the Ely tidal harbour. The builders of the new tips were Messrs. Fielding and Platt, of Gloucester. Subsequent to the inspection of loading operations an adjournment was made to a large marquee at the other end of the subway, where an excellent luncheon had been prepared by Mr. Stevens, of the Dorothy Cafe, Cardiff.' - Weekly Mail - [067] [361] 3rd August 1901.

1901 - The loading apparatus of coal on ships is no longer limited to the shovel and chutes. Machinery has displaced man-muscle. In Cleveland, Ohio, a few days ago the record was made of loading a coal cargo of 6,720 tons in ten hours. This is rapid work, but according to a marine journal this record has been surpassed at Penarth dock, Cardiff, South Wales. In this instance the coal was loaded at the rate of one thousand tons per hour. This is a large saving of labor and time, to say nothing of perspiration, and the end is not yet. The loading and unloading of a sea-freight vessel is an important item of cost. In this case improved machinery pays its own cost. - The Age of Steel vol. XC [1214] [499] 6th July 1901.