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

The whole of the operations for working the tips are actuated from a cabin fixed in the tip framing. The tips are provided with shutes capable of reaching 24 ft. from the face of the dock wall. A detachable piece 6 ft. long can be added to these shutes when required, giving them a total length of 30 ft.

Cranes are provided for working the " Dispatch " anti-breakage boxes ; these are capable of holding 5 tons and 3 tons, respectively, of coal. These boxes can be worked from the point of the shute to the bottom of a ship's hold once every 30 seconds. The cranes, which have a range of 100 ft. lift, can be swung round to reach the nearest line of running rails for loading or discharging cargo from or into railway trucks when required.

The tips are also provided with smaller cranes of lifting load of 4 tons, for the purpose of carrying coal screenings from the ship's deck, and discharging same into trucks on the line of rails nearest to the quay wall.

The sidings are similar to those at the Basin moveable tips described in the Railway Magazine for July, 1904. Storage sidings to hold coal awaiting shipment have been provided in convenient proximity to the dock, and are capable of holding some thousands of wagons.

The splendid equipment of Penarth Dock, with its twenty-one coal tips, of which fifteen are on the dock, and six in the basin, is eloquent testimony of the enterprise of the directors of the Taff Vale Railway, the skill of its engineers, and the able control of the general manager, Mr. Ammon Beasley, and the harbour superintendent Mr. S. Thomas.

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