The Port Talbot Railway and Docks Company (PTR&D) was formed in 1894 to secure the means of bringing minerals, chiefly coal, to the harbour in South Wales.

The controlling shareholder in the company for many years was Emily Charlotte Talbot (1840-1918), an unusually powerful woman for the times.

Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot inherited the Penrice and Margam estates in West Glamorgan in 1813.

The Margam estate straddled the outcrop of the South Wales Coalfield, and had considerable mineral potential.

In fact the scheme was grossly undercapitalised and there appear in addition to have been financial irregularities; the Port Talbot Company went into receivership in 1858, which lasted until matters were regularised in 1863.

[1] As time went, on Christopher Talbot became a major creditor of the company, as it failed to honour rent and debenture payments.

From this time, two major attempts were made to achieve a negotiated working arrangement between industrial promoters and Emily Talbot.

[1] The mineral development of the area above Port Talbot demanded action of some kind, and in the 1894 session of Parliament, opposing Bills were considered.

The authorised capital was £600,000, of which Emily Talbot was entitled to over 20% by virtue of shares, and money owed to her by the old company.

The firm had been selected in advance, and no competing tenders were sought; this fact led to some controversy at a Board meeting, and the resignation of a director.

[1] Construction was fairly straightforward, and the first revenue traffic was conveyed on 30 August 1897, entering the Port Talbot North Dock lines via Copper Works Junction, that is, the southern route.

[1][2][3] Even as the PTR&D main line was under construction, controversy had arisen over access to pits further north, in the vicinity of Tonmawr.

The South Wales Mineral Railway had been built, passing the area since 1863, but connected collieries complained that the inconvenience of the rope worked Ynysmaerdy incline on that line limited their trade.

In 1885 the Rhondda and Swansea Bay Railway opened its main line up the Cwmavon valley, but passed some distance to the south of the pits.

The motivation in this was dissatisfaction with the Great Western Railway, which had a monopoly of rail transport from South Wales to London and Salisbury.

The proposal extended to building as far as Tondu, and after negotiation the GWR agreed to facilitate traffic from its L&OR lines to the OVE route.

This plan was submitted for the 1896 session of Parliament in parallel with the London and South Wales Railway scheme.

Assistant engines were always used on heavy mineral trains, and for braking purposes had to be switched from rear to front when descending.

At the time the UK locomotive building industry was overworked and the PT&RD wanted quick supply, so American manufacturers were included.

Several suppliers provided quotes, and the offer from the American company of Cooke Locomotive and Machine Co through their London agents was accepted on 17 May 1899, on the basis of extremely limited information.

[1] However the dubious contractual details (the wheel arrangement was changed and vacuum brake equipment added after acceptance of the offer) and the remarkably short building period led to grave difficulty.

Some faults were corrected, after which they were able to take thirty loaded wagons plus van totalling about 500 tons up a 1 in 75 gradient, but this was still far short of that specified.

[1] In March 1900, the Directors were still in need of additional locomotive power and were considering whether to exercise the option for 3 or 5 more of the US engines, this time with performance specifications properly fixed.

It was decided to retender the whole process and later Sharp, Stewart and Company were given an order for two large locomotives, soon increased to three.

The supplier proved much more responsive to the PTR&D requirements, and this time delivery was to be in a more realistic fourteen months.

Their advantage was as a cheap way of serving passenger stopping points in lightly used areas, although they required a crew of three like a conventional train.

[1][4][8] In 1915, the Baldwin company asked the GWR to operate workmen's trains from Margam steelworks to the Newlands and Cribbwr Fawr collieries.

[4] As early as 1902, the Port Talbot Steelworks entered production, and its location alongside both the PTR&D and the Great Western Railway encouraged a symbiotic relationship.

A further steep drop in mineral activity resulted in all of the remaining network except for short stubs at Port Talbot and the dock lines being closed between 1964 and 1967.

[4] When it was absorbed by the GWR on 1 January 1922, the PTR operated a total of twenty-two engines of seven different classes, built by four distinct locomotive manufacturers.