double the line between Bassaleg, Machen and Abertysswg in anticipation of considerable extra business on the route. The Great Western Railway, by now owner of the Monmouthshire Railway system, was less cooperative. The PC&NR was to use the B&MR from Machen to Bassaleg, but needed to pass over a mile or so of the Monmouthshire Western Valley line to reach Newport Docks, and the GWR did not make the facility available at first, on 7 July 1884. After a stand-off the use of the line was conceded. In 1882 the Newport Docks company reconstituted itself as the Alexandra (Newport and South Wales) Docks and Railway and was clearly in the lead over the affairs of the PC&NR, and it obtained powers in 1883 to build an additional double track alongside the Western Valley line from Bassaleg. This opened in April 1886. The approach to Machen on the B&MR Caerphilly branch was on a steeply graded single line, and working the heavy mineral traffic over it was inconvenient; the PC&NR obtained powers to build a second, nearly parallel single line on easier gradients: the Machen Loop. This was opened on 14 September 1891 an immediately transferred to B&MR ownership. The new and old single lines were operated as a double track. Waterloo and Fountain Bridge platforms for the railmotor stopping trains, were on the separated single lines and accordingly had a service in one direction only respectively. Barry Railway The Barry Railway was founded to provide an alternative port for the export of the coal and mineral resources of South Wales, following decades of dissatisfaction with the facilities at Cardiff and Newport, and with the railway connections to those places. The first section of line opened in 1888 and in the following year coal was hauled from the Rhondda Valley, and the Company moved on to providing a connection from the Rhymney Railway at Penrhos, west of Caerphilly. In 1898 it obtained powers to make another connection, this time with the B&MR between Bedwas and Maesycwmmer. This was a significant civil engineering undertaking, crossing the Rhymney Valley on a large structure known as Llanbradach viaduct. The new line opened on 2 January 1905. The Barry Railway had running powers for mineral traffic in the upper part of the B&MR network in the Rhymney Valley; other traffic was hauled by the local company and exchanged at Duffryn Isaf. Grouping Most of the