Richard Trevithick monument, Merthyr Tydfil
This monument is topped with a model of Richard Trevithick’s pioneering steam locomotive, the first in the world to haul a train along a track. The technology was to change the course of human history by transforming the movement of goods and people.
Richard was born in Illogan, Cornwall, in 1771. He was still a teenager when he started working as an engineer at local tin mines, where Boulton & Watt steam engines were used. He developed new engines which used high-pressure steam, improving efficiency. He also built steam-powered road carriages.
Samuel Homfray, owner of the Penydarren ironworks in Merthyr Tydfil, entered into a partnership with Richard in 1803 to build and market Richard’s high pressure stationary engines. Samuel encouraged construction of a steam engine which might haul wagons along the Merthyr Tramroad in place of horses. The tramroad ran from the ironworks to the Glamorganshire Canal in Abercynon, bypassing the canal’s congested upper reach.
Samuel was confident enough to place a large bet that the locomotive would manage to pull 10 tons of iron to Abercynon and return to Merthyr. On 21 February 1804, the loco successfully hauled a string of wagons containing 10 tons of iron and 70 men from Merthyr to Abercynon but broke down on the return journey.
The tramroad continued to use horses because the track consisted of cast iron “tramplates” fixed to stone sleepers. Many of the tramplates broke under the locomotive’s weight. Locomotive technology evolved in England and the Merthyr Tramroad later used steam locomotives. The tramroad was eventually supplanted by railways, including the Taff Vale Railway line of 1841 which is still in use.
Richard built at least two other steam locomotives, in 1805 and 1808, before concentrating on other projects, in Britain and South America. He was impoverished when he died in Kent in 1833.
In 1980-81 the Welsh Industrial & Maritime Museum in Cardiff Bay used drawings for those later locos in its project to build a working full-size replica loco, with help from more than 30 Welsh engineering companies. No drawings of the Penydarren loco survive. The replica is now displayed at the National Waterfront Museum in Swansea, where it occasionally runs along a replica section of tramroad. The video below shows how the machinery works.
Postcode: CF47 8UN View Location Map
Website of the National Waterfront Museum
Longer video of the replica loco in action – Museum Wales website