Volume Ten - Pre-Victorian to the present day - even more aspects - 1906 - A Visit to Penarth Dock. (Taff Vale Railway) . . .

In 1852, Lord Bute's trustees commenced, and in 1859 completed, another dock at Cardiff, now called the East Dock, which was fully equipped at the cost of the Bute Estate with the most modern appliances for the shipment of coal, and to these the Taff Vale Railway was refused access, although the Rhymney Railway, which had come into existence in the meantime, had unrestricted access thereto. The result to the Taff Vale Railway was that every ton of coal conveyed over that line for shipment at the East Dock had to pay the Rhymney Railway a heavy toll, and it was not until 1866 that they got independent access to the dock, and then only to the staiths on the west side, Parliament having in that year put upon the Bute Estate at the instance of the Taff Vale Railway the obligation to admit Taff trains to these staiths on arbitration terms. The Rhymney Railway still receives a toll on coal shipped at the east side of the East Dock.

Meanwhile, the development of the South Wales coalfield had progressed so rapidly that even two docks at Cardiff were unable to accommodate the output, and colliery proprietors, headed by the late John Nixon, who may be termed the pioneer of the South Wales coal industry, obtained (in 1856 and 1857) Parliamentary  power to construct a railway to, and a dock and shipping appliances at, Cogan Pill, the precise spot to which the abandoned Taff Vale Railway's line was intended to run. After surmounting the not unusual financial difficulties which beset undertakings of this character, the dock was completed and opened in 1865. An Act had been passed in 1863 empowering the Taff Vale Railway to lease the dock, and the railway by which it was served, subject, however, to a clause preserving the rights of the Marquis of Bute under the above-mentioned agreement between him and the Taff Vale Railway, relating to the West Dock at Cardiff. The lease was duly entered into, and the dock,when opened, was operated by the Taff Vale Railway.

Then trouble began. Lord Bute and his trustees claimed that the shipment of coal at Penarth by the Taff Vale Railway was an infringement of the agreement, and an action was commenced to recover from the Railway the whole of the dues and charges received by them on the traffic (including coal), shipped and unshipped at Penarth. The Court of the Queen's Bench gave judgment for the defendants (the Railway) ; but in the Exchequer Chamber the judgment was reversed, and the defendants cast in damages to the amount of £20,000.