wall with refuge manways, besides those provided in the main support walls. Although generally referred to as the "Graving Dock Tunnels", technically the facility was in fact a long skew rail underbridge over which some 14 sidings passed between Cadoxton Low Level Junction and Barry Docks signal box. The structure was radically altered to provide the new Barry docks area southerly town bypass road and now named Ffordd-y-Mileniwm, one half of the 'bore' being backfilled and the other, capped by a skew road overbridge which now provides a direct road link from Cadoxton to Barry Island. Just one freight railtrack survives here and links the Barry-Cardiff main line with No.2 dock. On to the Brecon and Merthyr Railway Frustrated by the refusal of running powers on the Rhymney network, the Barry Railway now decided to extend the new line further north-east to join the Brecon and Merthyr Railway, crossing the Rhymney Valley to do so. The Barry Railway got an Act in 1898 permitting the extension to cross the Senghenydd branch of the Rhymney Railway and then cross the Rhymney Valley itself, joining the Brecon and Merthyr line near Duffryn Isaf; the new line was miles in length and included even more prodigious engineering challenges, in particular the Llanbradach or Pwll-y-Pant viaduct. This alone cost about half of the £500,000 expense of building the line. The viaduct was long with eleven spans above the valley floor. The Brecon and Merthyr Railway received financial help to enable it to double-track parts of its system. The new route opened for goods and mineral traffic only on 2 January 1905. (Passenger excursion trains to Barry did run over the line.) In fact the Brecon and Merthyr Railway did not extend to Dowlais; by a compromise arrangement when the line from Bargoed to Dowlais was authorised, the line was divided lengthways, and the Rhymney Railway owned the northern three miles to Dowlais; for that reason Barry Railway running powers over the B&MR were not enough to get to Dowlais. Between 1904 and 1907 the Barry Railway planned an extension railway to by-pass the Rhymney Railway section, and to reach Newport over the B&M Railway, and this was authorised by Act of 28 August 1907. However, there were considerable limitations, particularly on rate competition, and the Barry Railway saw that this expensive line would not be profitable, and it delayed construction, hoping to negotiate better