The board of the P&TR realised they needed to gain economies of scale, and so appointed the largest M&MR shareholder J.J.Barrow to their board on 31 August 1871. Barrow needed the stable income and docks of the P&TR as his own M&MR was suffering financially through lack of traffic from the Midlands to Wales. Barrow appointed A.C.Sheriff to the board of the P&TR in May 1872, the former Traffic Manager of the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway. Further developments had to wait until the formation of the P&TR and M&MR Joint Committee in 1879; but by this point the M&MR was totally insolvent and the GWR had developed its strength in West Wales.