Alexandra (Newport and South Wales) Docks and Railway

Passenger services

The PC&NR had wished to operate passenger trains in to Newport High Street, the GWR station, in 1883, but the GWR had refused the facility. Relations had eased somewhat by 1887 and the Alexandra company operated a passenger service between Pontypridd and Newport High Street, over the PC&NR which was still nominally independent. The Great Western Railway itself took over this service from 1 January 1899. From that date the Alexandra company operated no passenger services at Newport, its home location.

In the first decade of the twentieth century, attention was given to ways in which local passenger services might be operated at lower cost in thinly populated areas. The Alexandra company acquired a railmotor, a single coach vehicle with a small integrated locomotive, and it started a service between Caerphilly and Pontypridd, Tram Road Halt. The last named was just short of the junction with the Taff Vale Railway at Pontypridd, so avoiding paying toll charges to that company. Most of the intermediate stopping places were newly installed, of the lightest possible construction, the arrangement being that the railmotor had fixed steps to allow passengers to board and alight at ground level. The service was extended to run from Machen to Tram Road Halt later, and a second railmotor was purchased. Semmens observes that even with the imminent grouping, and thence amalgamation of the Alexandra company with the GWR, the railmotor service "still did not run into the main station at Pontypridd."

Road passenger services

Also in the first decade of the 20th century the Alexandra company operated motor omnibus services within Newport Borough; it had the powers to do so as long as they did not compete with any municipal passenger tram route. Two 14-seat buses were acquired from the London and South Western Railway for the purpose. The arrangement lasted from 1906 to 1933.