| One of the
most significant dates in railway history is 21 February
1804. It was on this date that the Cornishman Richard
Trevithick ran the first steam-hauled railway train which
went any significant distance. This event took place in
south Wales, with the train running between the villages
of Penydarren and Abercynon. Penydarren is situated about a mile and a half north of the large town of Merthyr Tydfil, at the head of the valley of the River Taff. Next to the Penydarren Road, at the junction with Penyard Road, stands a monument (picture 1) erected in 1933 to mark the centenary of Trevithick's death. The inscription on the front of the monument (2) is self-explanatory, and another on the back gives details of the construction of the monument: "THIS MEMORIAL BUILT OF CHAIR-STONES AND RAILS RECOVERED FROM THE OLD PENYDARREN TRAMROAD WAS ERECTED BY THE PEOPLE OF MERTHYR TYDFIL WITH THE HELP OF THE TREVITHICK CENTENARY COMMEMORATION FUND. OCTOBER 1933" The chair-stones and rails spoken of in this second inscription are to be found at the base of the monument (3). On the top of the monument is a model (4) of Trevithick's locomotive. This was built to an asymmetric design, with toothed gear wheels on the port side and a large flywheel on the starboard side. The wheels of the locomotive had flat edges, and were kept on the track by a flange which was part of the track - as picture 3 shows. In essence, the significance of the event at Penydarren was the bringing together of the various elements of railway technology. Trevithick had been experimenting with his locomotive for some months, but had hitherto been running it on the ground. Similarly, the track on which he ran the locomotive had been in place as a horse-drawn tramway before the experiment - its purpose had been the transport of iron from the foundries of the Penydarren/Dowlais area to the Glamorganshire Canal at Abercynon. On the initial run, the train carried seventy men and ten tons of iron. It covered the 9½ miles to Abercynon in slightly over two hours. The concept was proved. However, this turned out to be only a short-term success. Whilst the locomotive was undoubtedly superior to the horses in terms of the amount it could haul, the increased loads which were possible and the weight of the locomotive itself put unsustainable stress on the rails. Being made of cast iron, these were brittle, and they cracked under the weight. The owners of the Penydarren tramway brought the experiments to an end, and the tramway returned to horse-drawn trains with smaller loads. Ultimately, the success of the railways would depend on advances in rail technology - first in new materials (wrought iron, and later steel) and second in different shapes (for instance, rolled iron, with the flange taken off the rails and put on the train wheels). Penydarren was in many ways the start of the story, but the later chapters would be written elsewhere. Today (1997) there are few traces of the Penydarren tramway, and even the railway which was built later by the Taff Vale Railway Company between Merthyr Tydfil and Abercynon along a similar route has declined to single-track status with only an hourly service calling at all stations. |
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 4(photographs taken 7 July 1997) |
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Related linksA Brief History of Wales - chapter 13, "The Coming of Industry" |
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