Book Review
BOOK REVIEW
“Barry Railway: Coal’s Last Burst”
This slim volume by erstwhile civil engineer, local historian and author Stephen K Jones has been produced to serve as an overarching summary to bring together several historical strands. These chart the 1880s development and growth of the Barry Railway and Docks to be the largest integrated coal exporting facility in the world and its gradual decline as the world’s shipping changed its fuel to oil from the 1910s.
Over the decades as the export coal trade declined, the docks saw new purposes as for instance the handling of American war materials in preparation for the D Day Landings, oil and banana imports. And let’s not forget the famous Woodham’s “resting place” where so many redundant steam locomotives awaited their new lives on heritage railways throughout Britain.
Woodham’s “resting place”
All in all, a very useful summary of all that concerns the Barry Docks prior to its re-envisaged status as a major waterside development from the 1990s on-ward. It may be obtained at a cost of £4.50 from the Barry War Museum at the Barry Island Station.
