An Act of Parliament was granted for a railway to Merthyr Tydvil in 1803,
and the following year the first locomotive which ran on a railway is
described in a racy manner by the _Western Mail_, as follows:—“Quaint,
rattling, puffing, asthmatic, and wheezy, the pioneer of ten thousand
gilding creations of beauty and strength made its way between the
white-washed houses of the old tramway at Merthyr. It has a dwarf body
placed on a high framework, constructed by the hedge carpenter of the
place in the roughest possible fashion. The wheels were equally rough
and large, and surmounting all was a huge stack, ugly enough when it was
new, but in after times made uglier by whitewash and rust. Every
movement was made with a hideous uproar, snorting and clanking, and this,
aided by the noise of the escaping steam, formed a tableau from which,
met in the byeway, every old woman would run with affright. The Merthyr
locomotive was made jointly by Trevithick, a Cornishman, and Rees Jones,
of Penydarran. The day fixed for the trial was the 12th of February,
1804, and the track a tramway, lately formed from Penydarran, at the back
of Plymouth Works, by the side of the Troedyrhiw, and so down to the
navigation. Great was the concourse assembled; villagers of all ages and
sizes thronged the spot; and the rumour of the day’s doings even
penetrated up the defiles of Taff Vawr and Taff Vach, bringing down old
apple-faced farmers and their wives, who were told of a power and a speed
that would alter everything, and do away with horses altogether. Prim,
cosy, apple-faced people, innocent and primitive, little thought ye then
of the changes which the clanking monster was to yield; how Grey Dobbin
would see flying by a mass of wood and iron, thousands of tons of weight,
bearing not only the commerce of the country, but hundreds of people as
well; how rivers and mountains would afford no obstacle, as the mighty
azure waves leap the one and dash through the other. On the first engine
and trains that started on the memorable day in February, twenty persons
clustered like bees, anxious, we learn in the ‘History of Merthyr,’ to
win immortality by being thus distinguished above all their fellows; the
trains were six in number, laden with iron, and amidst a concourse of
villagers, including the constable, the ‘druggister,’ and the class
generally dubbed ‘shopwors’ by the natives, were Richard Crawshay and Mr.
Samuel Homfray. The driver was one William Richards, and on the engine
were perched Trevithick and Rees Jones, their faces black, but their eyes
bright with the anticipation of victory. Soon the signal was given, and
amidst a mighty roar from the people, the wheels turned and the mass
moved forward, going steadily at the rate of five miles an hour until a
bridge was reached a little below the town that did not admit of the
stack going under, and as this was built of bricks, there was a great
crash and instant stoppage. Trevithick and Jones were of the
old-fashioned school of men who did not believe in impossibilities. The
fickle crowd, too, who had hurrahed like mad, hung back and said ‘It
won’t do’; but these heroes, the advance-guard of a race who had done
more to make England famous than battles by land or sea, sprang to the
ground and worked like Britons, never ceasing until they had repaired the
mishap, and then they rattled on, and finally reached their journey’s
end. The return journey was a failure, on account of gradients and
curves, but the possibility of success was demonstrated; and from this
run on the Merthyr tramway the railway age—marked with throes and
suspense, delays, accidents, and misadventures—finally began.”