Volume Twelve - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - further aspects - Railway Magazine - Interview with Mr. Ammon Beasley - TVR - 1898 . . . .

The Railway Magazine [053] [499] ran a series of 'Illustrated Interviews' with important characters from the industry of the time and within Volume III, July to December 1898. No. 13 was the extensive interview with Mr. Ammon Beasley, General Manager of the Taff Rail Railway.

r. Beasley, I am sure you will be interested to know that the readers of the Railway Magazine are anxious that you should supply them with a good deal of information about the Taff Vale Railway, and also concerning your own railway career.

Accepting the adage of 'leaving the best till last,' perhaps you will kindly supply me with some particulars of the Taff Vale?"

"If there is any information I can give respecting the Taff Vale Railway which is at all likely to interest your readers I shall be very glad to furnish it."

"The Taff Vale Railway was laid out by I. K. Brunel, the broad gauge champion, on the narrow gauge.

What are supposed to have been his intentions in thus departing from his usual practice?"

"It can hardly be said that Brunel departed from his usual practice in designing the Taff Vale as a narrow-gauge line, because the Great Western itself was originally intended to be so built and it was only when that line was about to be constructed that Brunel came to the conclusion, that the so-called narrow-gauge was a mistake. By that time the Taff Vale was well in hand, and it then was too late, even if it had been desirable, to make the gauge 7ft. instead of the 4ft. 8 in, which had even then become the standard gauge.