concessions to the South Wales coal trade. In this they succeeded, and the London & South Wales scheme was withdrawn in 1896." The Great Western Railway agreed to build its own South Wales Direct Line, from Wootton Bassett to Patchway via Badminton, and it was opened by the GWR in 1903. Barry Pier and pleasure steamers In an interview in 1906, the General Manager of the Barry Railway said, A passenger pontoon was constructed within the breakwaters, at which passenger steamers land or take in passengers. The pontoon is served by railway lines made from Barry through Barry Island, and it is now possible for passengers from Cardiff, and the districts containing the teeming population of South Wales, to travel by train to the pontoon, and embark for the various watering-places and towns in the Bristol Channel. The Barry Island branch was extended to Barry Pier. The extension was authorised in 1896, and it opened on 27 June 1899. The line descended to Barry Pier through a tunnel at 1 in 80. The Pier station never had an ordinary train service, but was limited to trains connecting with pleasure steamers, generally in the summer. The steamer service was provided by the firm of P & A Campbell from July 1899. They were the principal steamer operator on the Bristol Channel at the time, but the commercial relationship between them and the Barry Railway was strained. In 1904 the Barry Railway acquired statutory powers—the Barry Railway (Steam Vessels) Act of 15 August 1904—to operate its own steamer fleet, but these powers were considerably restricted, limiting the routes that might be operated. In 1905 the Barry Railway started its own steamer operation with two newly constructed vessels, Gwalia and Devonia and an 1899 steamer Westonia. In 1907 the paddle steamer Barry was added. 191,000 passengers made steamer journeys via Barry in that year. The operation was carried out for some time by a subsidiary company, the Barry & Bristol Channel Steamship Company trading as The Red Funnel Line. In the following years the Barry Railway made commercial arrangements with the owners of the piers at Burnham-on-Sea, Weston-super-Mare, Minehead and Ilfracombe. In the summer of 1906 the Barry Railway ran the Ilfracombe Boat Express, which operated from Cardiff Riverside and non-stop from Cardiff General GWR station to Barry. Notwithstanding the considerable volume of passengers carried, the steamer operation proved of doubtful profitability, and