{"id":16796,"date":"2015-11-24T12:39:25","date_gmt":"2015-11-24T12:39:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/?p=16796"},"modified":"2015-11-24T12:39:25","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T12:39:25","slug":"forgotten-railways-of-south-wales-the-south-west-breakwater-at-the-entrance-to-barry-docks-revisited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/forgotten-railways-of-south-wales-the-south-west-breakwater-at-the-entrance-to-barry-docks-revisited\/","title":{"rendered":"Forgotten railways of south Wales: the south-west breakwater at the entrance to Barry Docks revisited"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Return<\/p>\n

My\u00a0feature about an old\u00a0breakwater in Barry Island, south Wales<\/a> has proved surprisingly popular, and\u00a0I was pleased to learn more about this intriguing\u00a0piece of railway history, thanks to Brian Mills.<\/p>\n

Brian has sent me some fascinating details about the operation of the breakwater, which I’ve reproduced in full below, along with some archive postcard\u00a0views. Thanks again, Brian!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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Brian writes: “There appears to be much speculation in relation to the south-west\u00a0breakwater at the entrance to Barry Docks and the former Barry Pier\u00a0Railway Station.<\/p>\n

Colloquially, the structure was never called a pier\u00a0and shipping was never loaded from the breakwater.<\/p>\n

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Principally the Barry Railway Company constructed the north-east and\u00a0south-west breakwaters to promote a “calming” area for shipping\u00a0entering and leaving the Lady Windsor or Basin locks during the\u00a0possible ‘ravages’ of the Bristol channel during gales.<\/p>\n

The ubiquitous\u00a0steam crane seen in the early sepia record on this web page and many\u00a0later photographs was generally used for maintenance\/replacement of\u00a0the heavy timber baulks surrounding the lighthouse and protecting the
\nmasonry section of the breakwater toe.<\/p>\n

\"Return<\/p>\n

Similarly, the NW navigation\u00a0beacon on the opposite breakwater was often accompanied by a small\u00a0crane. After the second world war, a steam crane was often ‘marooned’\u00a0on the lighthouse breakwater and pre-1980 some further boulders were\u00a0dumped along the length of the breakwater (seaward side) which carried\u00a0a high and low level rail track and which split from a single line\u00a0long siding near the present yacht club’s building.<\/p>\n

Following\u00a0collisions with ships entering the ‘calming’ area during rough weather\u00a0after the 1950s, many timbers were damaged and never replaced.<\/p>\n

This\u00a0also applies to the timbers protecting the quays at the entrance to\u00a0the Lady Windsor and Basin Locks and the NW breakwater and now at low\u00a0tides one can see the masonry toes devoid of timbers and jutting into\u00a0the entrance at low tides.<\/p>\n

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[East portal of 280-yard, Pier tunnel (<\/u><\/u>Barry<\/u> <\/u>Island<\/u><\/u>). The fixed caution distant signal for Barry Island East ‘box was a Western Region standard replacement to the original wooden Saxby & Farmer arm with starting and distant somersault-style arms on a much higher post. <\/em><\/p>\n

The line from the docks to the west breakwater, crossed at this point where the rails had to be temporarily fixed above the pier lines (delineated by the sleepers in the scene) so that traffic could pass from a natural rock tunnel on the right, to get to the breakwater line which split into a high & low level siding at the Barry Yacht Club building. <\/em><\/p>\n

The telegraph wire link between Barry Island East \u2019box and the Pier ‘box was cabled through the tunnel but the short link from the latter to the Pier box was via aerial wires, the insulators and wooden arm still being visible, bolted to the stonework behind the signal. <\/em><\/p>\n

After the abolition of Barry Pier signal box (behind camera), a ground frame was installed in the tunnel to work a set of points in the bore and the catch point seen in the right-hand line. The operating rodding is just visible running into the loose sleepers. The tunnel is now bricked up here and at the other end a rifle range is housed within the bore<\/em>. Photo & text \u00a9 Brian Mills]<\/p>\n

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The line itself was fed from the south-east\u00a0side of No.1 dock near the former C.H. Bailey’s commercial drydock
\nentrance and the track ran between their buildings and the sandstone\u00a0cliff-face of the Redbrink Crescent promontory to then pass through an\u00a0unlined sandstone tunnel to emerge at right-angles to the east portal\u00a0of the former Barry Railway’s Barry Island (or Pier) tunnel.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0latter carried two tracks into the 4-track Pier station but to cross\u00a0the two lines at the tunnel exit, a flat railway crossing was never\u00a0laid.<\/p>\n

Instead, when traffic to and from the breakwater was necessary,\u00a0loose rails on timbers were laid with gauge-ties to ‘bridge’ the void\u00a0across the passenger lines to the station and removed after a\u00a0transit.<\/p>\n

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The very clear early sepia photograph (above) clearly\u00a0shows on the left, the site of Barry Pier railway station with the\u00a0floating pontoon which permitted boarding onto paddle-steamers at\u00a0practically any state of the tide.<\/p>\n

It also shows the former\u00a0hydraulically-operated passenger lift which permitted loading of\u00a0materials and carriage of disabled travellers from station platform\u00a0level to the floating pontoon or vice versa.<\/p>\n

\"Return<\/p>\n

[Ea<\/em>rly\u00a0postcard view<\/em>]<\/p>\n

The pontoon was connected\u00a0at the station booking office end via a two-section articulated bridge\u00a0link connected to the floating pontoon. All of this is quite clear on\u00a0the sepia.<\/p>\n

It is alleged that some coal ‘bunkering’ of paddle-steamers\u00a0may have been carried out by bringing coal by rail to the Barry Pier\u00a0station and then transferring it to the floating pontoon via the lift.<\/p>\n

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Another query relates to the wheeled white structure on later\u00a0photographs of the higher level line on the breakwater. It was used\u00a0when yacht races were set up and it is believed (but not confirmed)\u00a0that a “canon-shot” was fired from the cabin to signify the start of a\u00a0race.<\/p>\n

There are pictures of the last main line special charter steam and DMU\u00a0rail excursions to Barry Pier station and one shows the ‘cross-link’\u00a0near the tunnel east portal.<\/p>\n

A colour record on TRACKBED.com shows the\u00a0east portal of the pier tunnel with the timbers that previously bore\u00a0the removable rail link.”<\/p>\n

More info<\/strong><\/p>\n

Archive postcard views and modern Google map data:<\/p>\n

\"Return \"Return<\/p>\n

Google satellite map views<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"Return<\/p>\n

\"Return<\/p>\n

OS map:<\/p>\n

\"Barry<\/p>\n

Discuss the Barry breakwater and railway here<\/a><\/p>\n

More photos: Barry Island photos<\/a> \u2013 Wales photos<\/a> \u2013 abandoned railways<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My\u00a0feature about an old\u00a0breakwater in Barry Island, south Wales has proved surprisingly popular, and\u00a0I was pleased to learn more about this intriguing\u00a0piece of railway history, thanks to Brian Mills. Brian … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16806,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[17,193,90,198,16],"tags":[676,1314,151,1315,1316,1196,60,53,1200,666,1194],"class_list":["post-16796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-photos","category-places","category-railways","category-wales-places","category-wales","tag-barry","tag-barry-docks","tag-barry-island","tag-barry-pier-railway-station","tag-breakwater","tag-cardiff","tag-history","tag-pier","tag-railways","tag-south-wales","tag-wales"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/barry-island-breakwater-3.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQI7P-4mU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16796"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16821,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16796\/revisions\/16821"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}