Hodge John - Barry, Its Railway and Port

FRONT COVER: On Summer Sundays and Bank Holidays an excursion ran from the Sirhowy Valley to Barry Island, dating back to the early years of the century. In the 1950s, the down train arrived around midday and returned at 7.35pm, hauled by a former London & North Western 0-8-0 which turned on the Dock at Barry. Here we see Tredegars 49064 with the return train on 26th May 1958, the last year of former LNW haulage, passing Cadoxton Low Level Signal Box, before joining the former Barry Main Line via Wenvoe.

TITLE PAGE: An everyday scene at No. 1 Dock as a small coaster awaits loading at No. 1 Tip where a vessel is currently loading. The view is from the point at which the passenger ferry operated carrying the public across the Dock to near the C.H. Bailey Dry Dock from where they could walk to either Jacksons Bay or Barry Island. The ferry was first provided for workmen but was later made available to the public and was very well used.

BACK COVER: A panoramic view from Ship Hill Bridge of the modern scene at Barry station as a Pacer leaves with the 10.5am to Bridgend in October 2016. M.J. Back.

First published in Great Britain in 2018 by

Pen & Sword Transport

An imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

Yorkshire - Philadelphia

Copyright John Hodge, 2018

ISBN 978 1 52672 3 833

eISBN 978 1 52672 3 840

Mobi ISBN 978 1 52672 3 857

The right of John Hodge to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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I DEDICATE THIS book to those who educated me at Barry Grammar School which I attended from 1948 to 1956. What a wonderful array of highly professional masters there were during that period and before. My main dealings were with the following to whom I am ever grateful for their expertise: Griffith Caradoc Hughes (French); Teifion Phillips (History); Percy Fisher (English); Eric Jones (Maths); Gwyn Thomas (Spanish); Bryn Ashton (Latin); Digby Lloyd (Physics); Sidney Perkins (Chemistry) and many others, each of whom had his personal nickname. Unfortunately, the history curriculum contained no reference to local history, so when I left I knew nothing about the development of the Docks from 1884, or the Barry Railway, a significant omission to my education which I have had to rectify since.

IN MY RESEARCH, I have used Martin J. Becketts excellent little book The Barry Story , published in 1982, mostly for details of the number of engines bought for scrapping by Woodhams and their ultimate fate.

SOME READERS WILL only have heard of Barry in connection with the Scrapyard run by Dai Woodham during the 1960s and 70s, from which most of the engines were bought and restored to run on our heritage railways. But the railways and docks at Barry have a complete history all of their own which had achieved huge importance and fascination well before the Scrapyard ever existed. This book sets out to describe the Docks and Railway development and activities before and after the Scrapyard years with short sections on each aspect.

I lived at Barry for twenty-eight years from 1942 to 1970 and, though only young, saw some of the wartime activity at the Docks. Much of the comment relative to this period stems from my own experience and recollection. Almost all the photographs are from my own collection, both during the above period and on my visits since, but I have also used images by J.G. Hubback, whose collection I acquired in the late 1950s, some modern images by my friend Michael J. (Mike) Back of Efail Isaf, plus a few images bought in. Where no credit appears, these are photos taken by me or from my own collection.

MY FAMILY MOVED to Barry from Crosskeys, in the Western Valley, in 1942, when I was coming up to the ripe old age of four, and we soon moved to a house in Dock View Road, near the Sea View Labour Club, which overlooked a fantastic panorama of transport. Across the road, allotments ran from one end of the road to the other, about six to ten feet below road level as the road climbed and fell. Below this was a steep bank about twenty to thirty feet down, below which was the main line from Barry Docks to Cadoxton, and a few feet below this was the line into the Docks from Cadoxton Low Level, four tracks, two into the Old (No. 1) Dock, and two into the New (No. 2) Dock, both entering tunnels right in front of our house. Above the tunnels and on the same level as the main line was Barry Docks Storage Sidings, where thousands of coal wagons, loaded and empty, were marshalled for shipment and return empty to the collieries. Some general freight was also marshalled in these sidings. Beyond the marshalling yard were the tracks leading to the coal hoists where coal wagons were tipped into the ships berthed at the hoists on the north side of No. 2 Dock.

On the south side of the Dock was Ranks Flour Mill, where incoming ships would unload their cargo for processing and later at the south-west end of the Dock was the berth for the Geest Banana Traffic which became the main traffic, other than coal, from the mid-1950s until the company departed for Southampton in the mid-1960s. On the north side of the dock were ten coal hoists or tips, where coal wagons were unloaded into the ships berthed below them, five tips being removed in the late 1950s to be replaced by high capacity cranes for the import of bulk cargoes. Beyond the docks lay the Bristol Channel where vessels for Barry Docks would lie at anchor in Barry Roads until their tidal time arrived for entry, and pilot boats and tugs would ply between them to arrange their passage into the docks, if this was necessary. In the days after the war, the public could walk freely through the docks, and there was even a ferry service across No. 1 Dock to take passengers from just below the Dock Offices on the north side across to the bottom of Battery Hill, near the C.H. Bailey Dry Dock, on the south side from where they could walk either to Jacksons Bay or to Barry Island.