page_title: Taff Vale Railway
section_title: Planning and construction
hierarchical_section_title: Taff Vale Railway / Planning and construction
caption_attribution_description: English: System map of the Taff Vale Railway, Wales
context_page_description: The Taff Vale Railway was a standard gauge railway in South Wales, built by the Taff Vale Railway Company to serve the iron and coal industries around Merthyr Tydfil and to connect them with docks in Cardiff. It was opened in stages in 1840 and 1841.
  In the railway's first years, the coal mining industries expanded considerably and branches were soon opened in the Rhondda valleys and the Cynon Valley. The conveyance of coal for export and for transport away from South Wales began to dominate and the docks in Cardiff and the approach railway became extremely congested. Alternatives were sought and competing railway companies were encouraged to enter the trade.
  In the following decades further branch lines were built and the TVR used "motor cars" from 1903 to encourage local passenger travel.
  From 1922 the TVR was a constituent of the new Great Western Railway at the grouping of the railways, imposing its own character on the larger organisation. The decline in the coal and iron industries took its toll on the mainstay of the network, but passenger trains still operate on most of the main line sections.
context_section_description: Early in 1835, Anthony Hill, owner of the Plymouth Ironworks at Merthyr, asked the engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, a personal friend, to estimate the cost of building a railway from Merthyr to Bute Docks in Cardiff. Brunel's estimate was £190,649. However, by the following year Brunel had revised his estimate upwards, to £286,031, to accommodate improved gradients, mineral branches and shipping staithes.
  In October 1835 a meeting of 'the Proprietors of Iron Works, Collieries, and others interested in the Minfral and other Property of the Vallies  [sic] of the Taff, Rhondda, Cynon, Bargoed, and other adjacent places, and the Trade of the Town of Merthyr Tydvil and Port of Cardiff' was held at the Castle Inn in Merthyr Tydfil, chaired by John Josiah Guest, the MP for Merthyr. The meeting resolved to form "The Taff Vale Railway Company" and a provisional committee was appointed, consisting of J. J. Guest, W. Thompson, T. R. Guest, Richard Hill, Anthony Hill, William Forman, Walter Coffin, E. I. Hutchins, Edward Morgan, Robert Beaumont, Thomas Powell, W. Thomas, D. W. James, David Evans, George Insole, W. Jones, Henry Charles, and David Davis.
caption: The Taff Vale Railway in 1841
exif: {}