Welsh Journals

The Middle Period June 1857 Sept 1871 The prime product of the Works was iron bridges but over this period there was diversification into three other major product lines. First, railway signal and switch fastening, second comparatively large steam powered machine tools for riveting, strik- ing, drilling and lifting and, third, other civil engineering iron work such as light- houses, piers and railway station roofing. The maximum output was about two hundred tons of manufactured in a week and "for some time (we have) actually been turned out that quantity which at a profit of £ 1 10s a ton will produce a yearly revenue of over £ 15000".26The average employment was probably about two hundred at the Works though this would not include manag- ers, supervisors and erection gangs working abroad. 27 The bridges were usually designed at Crumlin though one of their largest bridges Blackfriars (2700 tons) was designed and executed by Joseph Cubitt in 1863 and 1864 with the works supplying ironwork to Cubbitts' specification.28 Some idea of the scale of the works can be gained from a comparison with the weight of Crumlin Viaduct which as noted earlier was 1636 tons. Other bridges were smaller but still substantial. Thus bridges for the Llanelly and Llandilo railway weighed 60 tons, East Indian 623 tons, Murray river Australia 555 tons, Halifax railway 150 tons, Pernambuco 364 tons.29 The number of spans also varied considerably. Thus the Ebro bridge in Spain had 21 spans, and the Aragon Bridge 18 spans. The Tagus bridge in Portugal had 16 spans whilst the Seisse bridge only had 6 spans.30 The bridges also differed widely in the length of spans. Thus a bridge for America had 1 span of length 165' and weighed 261 tons, another for England had 10 spans of 131' and weighed 972 tons. A third for Portugal had 3 spans of 78' weighing 115 tons. Maynard constantly reiterated a major selling point of their bridges speed of de- livery, "Not very long ago the Crumlin Viaduct took 31/2 years in construction. The bridge over the Embro took 8 months and the bridge in Rome 1 month". 31 The largest of their British bridges was probably the Blackfriars Railway which is the lattice structure behind the new Blackfriars Road bridge shown in the fourth ex- ample.32 The second group of products of railway signal and switching gear were much smaller and probably much less important but would have been a natural develop- ment from their other lines. The third series of products were steam powered tools. These included a self act- ing steam striker which as noted earlier won a silver medal at the Paris Exhibition, a