The Port Talbot Railway and Docks Company (PTR&D) was formed in 1894 to secure the means of bringing minerals, chiefly coal, to the harbour in South Wales. It took over the docks at Port Talbot that had been operated by the Port Talbot Company. It opened its main line in 1897 and reached a connection with the Great Western Railway Garw Valley line the following year. A branch line to collieries near Tonmawr also opened in 1898. The lines were extremely steeply graded and operation was difficult and expensive, but the company was successful. Passenger operation on the main line started in 1898, but this was never a principal part of the business. For some time most of the passenger train service was operated by a railmotor that was the largest ever to work in the United Kingdom. Also in 1898 the Ogmore Valleys Extension (OVE) line, a part of the PTR&D, was opened. It had been projected as a defensive measure against competitive incursion, and it led from Margam Junction towards Tondu.
When the mineral activity in the area declined after 1960, so did the PTR&D system, and the OVE lines (dormant in 2017) and the dock lines at Port Talbot are the only remaining tracks in use.
The controlling shareholder in the company for many years was Emily Charlotte Talbot (1840-1918), an unusually powerful woman for the times.
Port Talbot Dock Company
Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot inherited the Penrice and Margam estates in West Glamorgan in 1813. The Margam estate straddled the outcrop of the South Wales Coalfield, and had considerable mineral potential.
Transport of coal and other minerals away to market was hampered by the poor conditions at the nearby Aberavon harbour, and after a false start, a Parliamentary Act was obtained in 1836 to carry out improvements, and to call the harbour Port Talbot. The works included straightening out the course of the River Avon towards the sea. In fact the scheme was grossly undercapitalised and there appear in addition to have been financial irregularities; the Port Talbot company went into receivership in 1858, which lasted until matters were regularised in 1863.
In that year, a railway connection to the South Wales Railway was constructed, and improved appliances for the loading of coal to ships were installed. The branch line opened formally on 1 September 1864.
As time went, on Christopher Talbot became a major creditor of the company, as it failed to honour rent and debenture payments. When the company proposed improvements to the harbour in 1876 he obstructed most elements of the scheme, especially those involving major expenditure, and continued in that attitude to most proposals. The Rhondda and Swansea Bay Railway was building its line, destined to connect the Rhondda Fawr with Swansea Bay; the R&SBR wanted to develop Aberavon but Talbot resisted that. The matter continued without any progress, and as Talbot became older, he became even more difficult to negotiate with. Meanwhile the condition of the harbour deteriorated and ships' masters were unwilling to trade there because of the poor conditions.
In frustration, the R&SBR obtained an authorising Act in 1890 permitting development of the harbour. Naturally the Port Talbot Company, as owners who were against the improvements, were given what amounted to a veto. However Talbot had died on 17 January 1890 at the age of 86, and his unmarried daughter Emily Charlotte Talbot (1840 – 1918) inherited his considerable wealth, nearly £6 million.
From this time, two major attempts were made to achieve a negotiated working arrangement between industrial promoters and Emily Talbot. The second would have involved the formation of a Port Talbot Docks and Railway company (as opposed to the actual, later Port Talbot Railway and Docks company). Neither of the schemes came to reality.