There was considerable demand for dock accommodation in Newport, South Wales, chiefly for the export or coastal transport of iron ore and coal.
The mineral wealth of the area north and north-west of Newport was considerable, but until the latter part of the eighteenth century, available means of transport for the production was extremely limited; there were few roads, and those that did exist were very poor, so that even conveyance on the backs of pack animals was costly and difficult.
This resulted in the promotion of a canal, to connect both Pontnewynydd (north-west of Pontypool) and Crumlin, to a location close to wharves on the River Usk at Newport.
[1][2][3] The tidal range at Newport is large, and the transshipment from canal barges to sea-going ships was laborious, and in time there were calls for a floating dock to eliminate some of the difficulty.
[4] In the 1840s the Monmouthshire Canal Company had realised that its plateway track was inefficient and obsolescent, and from 1849 it rebuilt its route using more modern forms of railway.
It too proved inadequate for the business on offer, and an extension to it was opened, forming a total deep water area of 125 acres.
[6][3][7][9] Although the volume of minerals moved through the Newport dock complex was buoyant, it was observed that the best quality steam coal, was being extracted in the Taff and Cynon valleys.
[9] Although the PC&NR was only a short line it was steeply graded against the loaded traffic, and the transit from Pontypridd involved working over six different railways' networks.
[6][3] From 28 December 1887 the PC&NR operated a passenger service between Pontypridd and Newport; however it had no locomotives of its own and the Alexandra company provided the engine power.
[9] The PC&NR route had the characteristics of an ordinary local railway, and was quite distinct from the internal track at Alexandra Dock.
It only remained to find an auspicious time for amalgamation, and acquisition of the PC&NR by the Alexandra Company was authorised by an act of Parliament[which?]
Relations had eased somewhat by 1887 and the Alexandra company operated a passenger service between Pontypridd and Newport High Street, over the PC&NR which was still nominally independent.
In the first decade of the twentieth century, attention was given to ways in which local passenger services might be operated at lower cost in thinly populated areas.
The Alexandra Company acquired a railmotor, a single coach vehicle with a small integrated locomotive, and it started a service between Caerphilly and Pontypridd, Tram Road Halt.
The last named was just short of the junction with the Taff Vale Railway at Pontypridd, so avoiding paying toll charges to that company.
Most of the intermediate stopping places were newly installed, of the lightest possible construction, the arrangement being that the railmotor had fixed steps to allow passengers to board and alight at ground level.
[6][8] Semmens observes that even with the imminent grouping, and thence amalgamation of the Alexandra Company with the GWR, the railmotor service "still did not run into the main station at Pontypridd.
"[12] Also in the first decade of the twentieth century the Alexandra Company operated motor omnibus services within Newport Borough; it had the powers to do so as long as they did not compete with any municipal passenger tram route.
The Transport Act 1981 was intended to privatise the BTDB, and in 1982 the docks became part of Associated British Ports, a private sector company with certain statutory powers.
The only rail access is from the former GWR main line at Alexandra Dock Junction, facing for trains approaching from Newport passenger station.
After World War II and nationalisation of the railways, the decline accelerated, and the PC&NR passenger service between Pontypridd and Machen was closed from 17 September 1956.