The Railway Magazine, March 1951, carried a short note about the Penydarren Tramway as well as an article about Richard Trevithick and his locomotive which first ran on the Tramway in February 1804. The first steam locomotive on rails ..... This post pulls together information from a number of different websites about the Penydarren Tramway. The next post will follow the length of the line as best as is possible .... http://rogerfarnworth.com/2019/02/02/the-penydarren-tramroad-south-wales-part-1
I promised a survey of the line between Abercynon and Merthyr Tydfil. This next post follows the Penydarren Tramroad along its full length. http://rogerfarnworth.com/2019/02/06/the-penydarren-tramroad-south-wales-part-2
Seems as though somewhere I have heard or read mention of the name "Richard Trevithick". Where or why?
Can't say where, but the why I can handle. He's credited with the first practical steam locomotive. He had worked out the details of a single-cylinder 0-4-0 with a monstrous flywheel, with ore jennies in mind. But all the local mine owners in his part of Wales were content with their horses or mules. Finally a friend of his bet a mine owner Trevithick could build a machine that could haul x number of jennies weighing a specified amount within a certain period of time. And he did, too. It worked like a charm. It also destroyed every inch of the wooden trackage it traversed. He didn't get rich from it. The bet seems to have covered his investment, but that one was scrapped and any dreams he and his friend may have had of building dozens of them came to naught. But 25 years later, similar teakettles (with two cylinders clocked 90 off instead of the big, dangerous flywheel) were hard at work between Manchester and Liverpool. The Trevithick locomotive ran just a year after the Louisiana Purchase. Lewis and Clark had no idea what he was up to, or how that would make up for the Northwest Passage they weren't finding.
This next post relates in passing to the Penydarren Tramroad. It focuses primarily on the Plymouth Ironworks an Collieries which grew as a result of the existence of the Tramroad and the later railways in the Taff Valley. ... http://rogerfarnworth.com/2019/11/13/the-plymouth-or-south-duffryn-colliery-in-the-taff-valley
