Taff Vale Railway
| Cymru a fu a Chymru fydd (Wales hath been, and Wales shall be) |
| 12 October 1835 | Resolution passed to form The Taff Vale Railway Company |
| 21 June 1836 | Act of Incorporation |
| 16 September 1836 | First company General Meeting, directors appointed |
| 9 October 1840 | Opened Cardiff to Navigation House (Abercynon) |
| 12 April 1841 | Opened Navigation House to Merthyr Tydfil |
| 10 June 1865 | Penarth Dock opened, TVR took out a 999-year lease |
| 1900 | Strike led to Taff Vale case (1901) |
| 1903 | "Motor cars" (steam railway passenger coaches) introduced |
| 1 January 1922 | Became constituent company of the GWR |
| 1847 | Aberdare Railway |
| 1862 | Penarth Harbour & Dock Railway |
| 1863 | Llantrisant & TV Railway |
| 1889 | Cowbridge & Aberthaw Railway |
The Taff Vale Railway (TVR) was a standard gauge railway in South Wales, built by the Taff Vale Railway Company to serve the iron and coal industries around Merthyr Tydfil and to connect them with docks in Cardiff. It was opened in stages in 1840 and 1841.
In the railway's first years, the coal mining industries expanded considerably and branches were soon opened in the Rhondda valleys and the Cynon Valley. The conveyance of coal for export and for transport away from South Wales began to dominate and the docks in Cardiff and the approach railway became extremely congested. Alternatives were sought and competing railway companies were encouraged to enter the trade.
In the following decades further branch lines were built and the TVR used "motor cars" (steam railway passenger coaches) from 1903 to encourage local passenger travel.
From 1922 the TVR was a constituent of the new Great Western Railway (GWR) at the grouping of the railways, imposing its own character on the larger organisation. The decline in the coal and iron industries took its toll on the mainstay of the network, but passenger trains still operate on most of the main line sections.