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The Rhondda and Swansea Bay Railway connected the coal mines of the Rhondda Valley to the Swansea Bay ports. Connecting with the Taff Vale Railway at Treherbert, it had branches to Aberavon and Port Talbot docks. It was later extended to Swansea and a branch to Neath was added, bringing the total length to 31 miles. Commercially a poor route, it was operated by the Great Western Railway from 1907, and fully incorporated from 1922. Under the Beeching Axe, as a loss making concern the railway was an early closure opportunity, being closed from 1962 and completely shut in 1970. Its Neath industrial branch survived until 1983. ==Background== From 1870 onwards, the demand for Rhondda steam coal was expanding more quickly than the infrastructure of the Taff Vale Railway and Bute Docks could support. In 1874 the total coal and coke exported from Cardiff and Penarth was 2,886,000 tons, which had risen to 7,774,828 tons by 1882. By 1880 a train typically took 23 hours to travel from the Ocean Colliery to Bute Dock, and 27 hours for the empty wagons to return. This slowed production, as no additional railway capacity had been built, and only the Roath Basin provided additional dock capacity.〔(Rhondda Railways )〕 Two attempts were made to break the monopoly of the Marquess of Bute. The Barry Railway and Docks built at a cost of £2 million a new dock at Barry Island with a railway connecting with Rhondda above the narrow Tongwynlais gorge. The first coal was shipped on 18 July 1889, with a second dock opened in 1898, and a third in 1914. On 16 March 1896 the main line between Porth and Barry was opened for passenger traffic, to connect with the paddle steamers of P and A Campbell. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Rhondda and Swansea Bay Railway」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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