The Monmouthshire Railway and Canal Company was a canal and railway company that operated a canal and a network of railways in the Western Valley and Eastern Valley of Newport, Monmouthshire. It started as the Monmouthshire Canal Navigation and opened canals from Newport to Pontypool and to Crumlin from 1796. Numerous tramroads connected nearby pits and ironworks with the canal.
After 1802 the company built a tramway from Nine Mile Point, west of Risca, to Newport, and an associated company, the Sirhowy Tramroad, connected from Tredegar. Steam locomotives were used from 1829. By 1850 pressure was mounting to modernise the line, and the Newport and Pontypool Railway Amendment Act 1848 authorised conversion to a modern railway, construction of a new railway from Newport to Pontypool, and a change of name for the company to the Monmouthshire Railway and Canal Company.
The high volume of mineral activity in the area kept the company in good financial health for many years, but it failed to keep abreast of competing developments, and faced with unforeseen major loss of business it sold the rights to operate its network to the Great Western Railway (GWR) in 1875. The developed the network, until in the period after 1918 road competition increasingly abstracted passenger and non-mineral goods traffic. Passenger operation ceased in 1962.
The Eastern Valley Line closed completely south of Cwmbran Junction in 1963, but the Western Valley Line was sustained by the continued operation of British Steel's works at Ebbw Vale. A passenger service from Ebbw Vale to Cardiff was resumed on 6 February 2008.
Monmouthshire Canal Navigation
For centuries the mineral wealth of Monmouthshire had been exploited, especially in the manufacture of iron; the necessary raw materials were all at hand: coal, ironstone, limestone, and timber. This availability encouraged technical innovation, and this in turn led to considerable progress in the industry. The iron production took place some distance from the coast, and transport away to a point of use was exceedingly difficult and expensive.
Industrialists in the area combined to finance the construction of a canal from Pontnewynydd, a little north-west of Pontypool, to Newport, and a second arm from near Crumlin, through Rogerstone to join the first arm of the canal at Crindau, close to Newport. Each arm of the canal was 11 miles in length. The canal was authorised by the Monmouthshire Canal Navigation Act 1792 (32 Geo. 3. c. 102), and the act included permission to build connecting tramways or plateways (or alternatively "stone roads") to pits within eight miles of the canal, and to raise £120,000. The estimated cost was £106,000, and such was the enthusiasm for the scheme that the capital was all subscribed before the act was passed.
There was a considerable fall from the top of the canal to Newport: the Pontnewynydd arm descended 447 feet, using 42 locks; there were two tunnels. The Crumlin arm descended 358 feet to Crindau, and required 31 locks. Reservoirs had to be created at the heads of the canal to ensure a reliable water supply.
The main arm of the canal opened in 1796, and by this time tramroads had already been constructed in readiness connecting the furnaces of Trosnant, Blaendare and Blaenavon to the line of the canal. When the Crumlin arm was ready, corresponding tramroad connections led to it from Beaufort, Sorwy, Nantyglo and Aberbeeg. In fact, the numerous short tramroad connections exceeded in aggregate length the extent of the canal to which they led.
Priestley described the route of the canal:
The gauge of the tramroads was 3 ft 4in, and it was constructed of edge rails of a plain cross-section 2 inches wide at the head and inches wide at the base, and three inches deep. The wagon wheels were double flanged, straddling the rail. Cast iron sleepers maintained the gauge, and these were supported on square wooden blocks laid on stone chippings. There were no passing places on the single line tramroads: empty wagons were manhandled off the track to allow loaded wagons to pass them.
A supplementary act of Parliament was secured on 30 May 1798 to allow for loading facilities at the ship berths in Newport. In April 1799 the whole project was said to be complete, and nearly 44,000 tons of material were conveyed in 1798 alone.
A main line plateway The project was hugely successful, and there was immediate demand for connecting other mineral sites, in particular at Tredegar and in the Sirhowy Valley. Extension of the canal was a possibility, although difficulties had already been experienced with shortage of water, and with ice blockage of the canal in winter. The engineer Benjamin Outram was called in to advise. He proposed a new line of plateway from Tredegar to Risca Church, joining the existing canal there. This time the line would have "all convenient turnouts" (passing loops) and "if required to construct double rail".
In addition Outram recommended further reservoir capacity for the canal, and conversion of all the existing tramroad connections to plateways, in which the rails are L-shaped plates, the vertical flange providing the guidance to unflanged wheels; the gauge was to be 4 ft 2in. The canal company accepted his recommendations, and this was formalised on 18 December 1800.
The work was authorised by act of Parliament, the Monmouthshire Canal Navigation Act 1802 (42 Geo. 3. c. cxv), of 26 June 1802, although by that time a modification had been decided upon. Instead of the Monmouthshire Canal Navigation Company building the whole of the new plateway, it would concentrate on conversion of the existing lines, and improving the canal. The Sirhowy Tramroad Company would be formed to build the majority of the new line from Tredegar as far as a location nine miles from Newport, later named Nine Mile Point. The canal company was to build its own tramway from there to a terminus at Llanarth Street in Newport, at the canal basin. The line passed through the estate of Sir Charles Morgan, later Lord Tredegar, and he reserved tolls for himself on the mile of route through his land; this lucrative arrangement became known as "the Park Mile" or "the Golden Mile". The Monmouthshire Canal Navigation Company was by now authorised to raise a total capital of £275,330.
The whole of the Monmouthshire Canal section was double track, and there was a large viaduct of 32 arches at Risca; the whole Monmouthshire Canal Navigation Company line cost £32,000. The wagons were conveyed in trains of 15 or so drawn by five or six horses.
The Monmouthshire Canal Navigation Act 1802 allowed the Monmouthshire Canal Navigation Company to make additional wharves on the banks of the River Usk to enable cargoes to be transferred to ships for export. The canal was to be extended a mile and a quarter down the river from Llanarth Street, the original termination, to Pillgwenlly; the cost was said to be £100,000. quoted in Byles Work was begun in 1806.
Passengers on the tramway Passengers were carried on the Monmouthshire plateway lines from 1822. They were carried on specially constructed vehicles operated by independent carriers. John Kingson operated his horse-drawn omnibus from the Tredegar Arms at Newport to Tredegar; his carriage was nicknamed the "Caravan" and ran twice weekly, Kingson paying tolls along the route. A man called Samuel Homfray soon joined Kingson with services from other towns to Newport.
Locomotives The transit from the ironworks to Newport was slow and expensive, as each wagon was accompanied by a horse and driver. The employment of steam locomotives elsewhere had been beneficial, and Samuel Homfray and his engineer Thomas Ellis were interested in using one at the Tredegar works. A locomotive was ordered from Robert Stephenson of Killingworth for trials. The locomotive, named Britannia, started work in October 1829, and the following December made its first journey to Newport. A newspaper reported:
It was confidently stated for some weeks past that the Tredegar Iron Company... were to start a locomotive engine the day of the Cattle Show, on Thursday last, to bring the iron from the Works to this port [Newport], a distance of twenty-four miles. The persons assembled at the Cattle Show (which was close to the tram-road) were looking anxiously for the steam-engine, but it did not make its appearance. The engine did, however, start from the Works early in the morning, but unfortunately, at one of the crossings in the tramroad... the wheels got out of the tram-plates, which caused a detention of some hours, and on coming through Tredegar Park, the chimney was carried away by a branch of a tree hanging over the tram-road; and in consequence of these accidents it did not arrive at Newport till the evening.
There were problems with steaming and with boiler feed water in the early days. Nevertheless, the results of locomotive operation were encouraging. However, the weight of the locomotive caused many of the tramplates to break, and the company set about adapting their track by installing more substantial plates; nearly 1,000 tons of tramplates were ordered from the Coalbrook Vale and Nant-y-glo Ironworks.
Mr Prothero of Newport ordered a locomotive from Price and Co. of Neath Abbey, to convey coal from his collieries at Blancyffin Isha to Pillgwenlly. The engine was delivered on 16 July 1830 and on 25 July made a demonstration run conveying a payload of tons a distance of 15 miles. Two other coalowners followed his example.
Upgrading the Western Valley Line The Newport to Risca (and Nine Mile Point) tramroad was extended from Risca to Crumlin in 1829, directly paralleling the canal. It became known as the Western Valley Line. Most of the traffic was still horse-drawn. The Rumney Tramroad was under construction, running on the eastern side of the Rhymney Valley it joined the Monmouthshire Tramway at Tydu (later named Bassaleg), and ran along the Park Mile. It was completed in 1836, and a further five carriers started to use the line, which was becoming seriously congested.
New locomotives had to be ordered for the Western Valley Line; the first was received from Grylls of Llanelly during December 1848. It weighed nearly 20 tons, more than double the weight of any locomotive previously seen on the Western Valley lines.
With the company absolved from the supply of mineral wagons, it now published a specification for the carriers' wagons so that they could operate together in trains, as few of the existing wagons were compatible with each other. The carriers had 4,000 wagons between them and there was a protest at the cost of converting them. Captain Simmons of the Board of Trade was called in to adjudicate.
In fact Simmons reviewed the whole of the company's proposed operation, and on 28 April 1849 they received his judgment. He was critical of the combination rail and wheel arrangement, and he recommended that "proper" railway track should be used, laid adjacent to the existing tramplate to allow for continued operation during the conversion. He wanted the railway fenced, and level crossing gates and signalling to be provided. All the wagons in use were unsuitable for a passenger carrying railway, and they had to be replaced with those of an approved type, with wrought iron wheels, springs and buffers.