Welsh Journals

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Cefngyfelach on 1st May 1896. The following day the first trucks of coal were brought down and the new line was in business. With its opening three-quarters of the horses and carts used previously were dispensed with. The junction with the GWR at Cwmfelin faced east, making it easy for traffic to be taken on to Swansea docks or to be transferred to the Cwmfelin internal system. The first half mile or more of the railway climbed fairly steeply through Manselton, but then it levelled out and followed the contours on the side of Mynydd Cadle through Penfilia, Treboeth and Tirdeunaw. Below Penlan Fawr it crossed the Vivians' Mynydd Newydd incline by a bridge. The engine shed was at Cwmfelin works, and an early setback occurred here soon after the line opened when, on 10th July 1896, the shed caught fire and the brand-new locomotive inside was damaged. Following the opening of the railway as far as Cefngyfelach, the way was now clear for Jenkins and Daniel to start on opening up new areas of coal. It had been intended all along that the Cefngyfelach line should only be the first stage, a springboard for further expansion, and that it should be extended north towards Llangyfelach village to serve the new pits to be developed in this area. The CGCC lost no time in doing this, for in June 1896 the expected expansion started when they began to sink a new shaft in a field near Cilfwnwr Farm between Llangyfelach and Penllergaer. Something obviously went wrong with their plans, for the sinking was abandoned without the pit coming into production. It is tempting to see this as no more than a trial bore made as a preliminary to the sinking of Tirdonkin, although the report in The Cambrian seems clearly to imply that the shaft was intended to be a working colliery, since it states that the new pit was to be larger than Cefngyfelach. Of course, it could be that the reporter misunderstood the information he was given, which might have been that this shaft at Cilfwnwr, if it proved satisfactory, would ultimately lead to the sinking of a pit which would be larger than Cefngyfelach, but whatever the reason, no more is heard of this shaft. Three years later, in 1899, preliminary work started which was eventually to culminate in the sinking of Tirdonkin Colliery. By this time (possibly in 1898) Daniel appears to have pulled out of the company and to have made over his interest to Jenkins. The latter was now Chairman of the CGCC and very much in control, but associated with him as a director was W. G. Foy who was also sales agent for the company. In August 1899 William Morgan, the manager of Cefngyfelach, announced that his company was to win the coal at Tirdonkin. The 5 ft. and 6 ft. seams were to be worked with an output as high as 5,000 tons a day, an ambitious target that was never even remotely approached in practice. Work started, probably in January 1900, with the extension of the railway to the site of the new colliery. By May it was more or less completed. Some quite substantial earthworks were required and these