Ffestiniog Railway
The Ffestiniog Railway is a heritage railway based on narrow-gauge, in Gwynedd, Wales. It is a major tourist attraction located mainly within the Snowdonia National Park.
The railway is about long and runs from the harbour at Porthmadog to the slate mining town of Blaenau Ffestiniog, travelling through forested and mountainous terrain. The line is single track throughout with four intermediate passing places. The first mile of the line out of Porthmadog runs atop an embankment called the Cob, which is the dyke of the polder known as Traeth Mawr.
The Festiniog Railway Company, which owns the railway, is the oldest surviving railway company in the world. It also owns the Welsh Highland Railway, which was re-opened fully in 2011. The two railways share the same track gauge and meet at Porthmadog station, with occasional trains working the entire route from Blaenau Ffestiniog to Caernarfon.
History
The railway company is properly known as the "Festiniog Railway Company". The single F spelling is in the official title of the company in the local act, the Festiniog Railway Act 1832, that created the railway. It is the oldest surviving railway company in the world, having been founded by the act of Parliament on 23 May 1832 with capital mostly raised in Dublin by Henry Archer, the company's first secretary and managing director. Most British railways were amalgamated into four large groups in 1921 and then into British Railways in 1948 but the Festiniog Railway Company, like most narrow-gauge railways, remained independent. In 1921, this was due to political influence, whereas in 1947 it was left out of British Railways because it was closed for traffic, despite vigorous local lobbying for it to be included.Various important developments in the railway's early history were celebrated by the firing of rock cannon at various points along the line. Cannon were fired, for instance, to mark the laying of the first stone at Creuau in 1833, the railway's opening in 1836, and the opening of the Moelwyn Tunnel in 1842. The passing of the later for the railway also saw cannon celebrations, but on this occasion, a fitter at Boston Lodge, who was assisting with firing, lost the fingers of one hand in an accident.
Horse and gravity operation
The line was constructed between 1833 and 1836 to transport slate from the quarries around the inland town of Blaenau Ffestiniog to the coastal town of Porthmadog where it was loaded onto ships. The railway was graded so that loaded wagons could be run by gravity downhill all the way from Blaenau Ffestiniog to the port. The empty wagons were hauled back up by horses, which travelled down in special 'dandy' wagons. To achieve this continuous grade, the line followed natural contours and employed cuttings and embankments built of stone and slate blocks without mortar. Prior to the completion in 1842 of a long tunnel through a spur in the Moelwyn Mountain, the slate trains were worked over the top via inclines, the site of which can still be seen although there are few visible remnants.Up to six trains daily were operated in each direction and a printed timetable was published on 16 September 1856 by Charles Easton Spooner who, following his father, served as Manager and Clerk for 30 years. It shows departures from the Quarry Terminus at 7:30, 9:28, 11:16, 1:14, 3:12 and 5:10. Trains waited ten minutes at the intermediate stations called Tunnel Halt, Hafod y Llyn and Rhiw Goch. The fastest journey time from Quarry Terminus to Boston Lodge was 1 hour 32 minutes, including three stops. From Boston Lodge, the slate wagons were hauled to and from Porthmadog harbour by horses. Up trains took nearly six hours from Boston Lodge to the Quarry Terminus and each train ran in up to four sections, each hauled by a horse and comprising eight empty slate wagons plus a horse dandy. This timetable gave a maximum annual capacity of 70,000 tons of dressed slate. Two brakesmen travelled on each down train, controlling the speed by the application of brakes as needed. At passing loops, trains passed on the right and this continues to be a feature of Ffestiniog Railway operation.
There is evidence for tourist passengers being carried as early as 1850 without the blessing of the Board of Trade, but these journeys would also observe the timetable.
Hafod y Llyn was replaced by Tan y Bwlch around 1872. Dinas Station and much of that branch is now all but buried under slate waste; the rest of the Dinas branch line was removed about 1954–55. Occasional confusion arises because places named Hafod y Llyn Isaf and Dinas also exist on the Welsh Highland Railway, albeit or more to the northwest of those on the FR.
Steam and gravity operation
During the late 1850s it became clear that the line was reaching its operational capacity, while the output of the Blaenau Ffestiniog slate quarries continued to rise. In 1860, the board of the company began to investigate the possibility of introducing steam locomotives to increase the carrying capacity of the railway. Although narrow-gauge steam locomotives had been tried before this, very few had been built to so narrow a gauge. In 1862 the company advertised for manufacturers to tender to build the line's first locomotives. In February 1863, the bid of George England and Co. was accepted and production of the first locomotives was begun.The first of these locomotives, Mountaineer was delivered to Porthmadog on 18 July 1863, followed a few days later by The Princess. After a number of trials and some modifications to the locomotive, the first official train ran on 23 October 1863. These steam locomotives of the 0-4-0 type allowed much longer slate trains to be run and this also enabled the official introduction of passenger trains in 1865: the Ffestiniog was the first narrow-gauge railway in Britain to carry passengers. In 1869, the line's first double Fairlie articulated locomotive was introduced and these double-ended machines have since become one of the most widely recognised features of the railway.
Down trains continued to run entirely by gravity but faster up journeys and longer trains increased line capacity. A new timetable dated October 1863 shows six departures daily from each terminus at two-hour intervals, starting at 7:00 am and taking 1 hour 50 minutes including stops at Tanygrisiau, Hafod-y-Llyn and Penrhyn. Trains passed only at Hafod-y-Llyn. When passenger services started, the usual practice was for locomotive-hauled up trains to consist of loaded general goods and mineral wagons, followed by passenger carriages, followed by empty slate wagons with brakesmen. Down trains were run in up to four separate portions: loaded slate wagons, goods wagons, passenger carriages and the locomotive running light. This unusual and labour-intensive method of operation was highly dangerous, at least as far as passengers were concerned; consequently, the down passenger and goods portions were combined into a single train headed by the locomotive.
The loaded slate trains continued to operate by gravity until the end of passenger services in 1939. Slate trains eventually became very long – trains of less than eighty slate wagons carried two brakesmen but over eighty wagons required three brakesmen. About one wagon in every six was equipped with a brake, the others being unbraked. Trains continued to pass at Tan-y-Bwlch and, to a lesser extent, at Minffordd. The Summer timetable for 1900 had nine trains daily in each direction and trains had been accelerated to one hour from Porthmadog to including stops at Minffordd, Penrhyn, Tan-y-Bwlch, Dduallt, Tanygrisiau, Blaenau and Blaenau. Speeds in excess of were then normal.
The original passenger coaches were small four-wheeled vehicles with a very low centre of gravity, which led to them being nicknamed 'bug boxes'. In 1872, the FR introduced the first bogie carriages to operate in Britain, Nos 15 and 16, which were also the first iron-framed bogie coaches in the world and are still in service. The continuous vacuum brake was installed in 1893. The line was fully signalled with electric telegraph and staff and ticket working. Electric Train Staff instruments were introduced in 1912 and they continue in use to the present day.
Decline of slate and development of tourism
By the 1920s, the demand for slate as a roofing material dropped owing to the advent of newer materials and to the loss of the overseas trade during World War I. As a result, the railway suffered a gradual decline in traffic.In 1921, the Aluminium Corporation at Dolgarrog in the Conwy Valley bought for £40,000, a controlling interest in the FR and Henry Jack became chairman, the FR company's financial administration moving to Dolgarrog. Jack was also chairman of the new Welsh Highland Railway. He was instrumental in getting government backing for its completion on the understanding that the FR and the WHR would be jointly managed from Porthmadog, with maintenance undertaken at Boston Lodge and with other economies of scale. In 1923, the FR line was joined to the WHR line at a station called Portmadoc New. The Welsh Highland line was almost totally dependent on tourism, but this proved slow to develop for several reasons: two slumps in the early 1920s and early 1930s; the rise of road traffic including charabancs; and the unreliability of the railway with its ancient carriages and increasingly decrepit locomotives.
Light railway operation was being introduced on the FR and WHR to cut operating overheads. In 1923, to gain additional expertise in this, Colonel H. F. Stephens was appointed as part-time engineer to both companies. Stephens became chairman and managing director of both companies in 1924. When the WHR was taken into receivership in 1927, Colonel Stephens was appointed as receiver for the WHR and financial administration of both companies moved to Tonbridge in Kent. The fortunes of the WHR, despite great efforts, failed to improve and it became bankrupt in 1933. To protect their investments, the joint owners of both companies arranged for the WHR to be leased by the FR. However the WHR losses continued with the loss of the Moel Tryfan slate traffic in 1935, and it closed to passengers at the end of the 1936 season and to goods in 1937.
The FR continued to operate its slate traffic, a workmen's train on weekdays throughout the year and a summer tourist passenger service. Ordinary passenger services ceased on the FR on 15 September 1939, shortly after the outbreak of World War II. The workmen's passenger service ran for the last time on Saturday, 16 September 1939. Slate trains were from then onwards operated three days each week but gravity operation was discontinued. Slate traffic ceased on 1 August 1946, apart from the section from Duffws to the North Western yard through Blaenau Ffestiniog town centre, which was leased on 7 October 1946 to the quarry owners. This provided the railway company, which retained the services of a resident manager at Porthmadog, with a small income throughout the moribund years.
The original act of Parliament which permitted the building of the line made no specific provision for its closure or abandonment. Although the main line had ceased functioning, the company could not dismantle the railway, so the track and infrastructure were left in place. An amending act of Parliament could have been sought to repeal the old one, but the company did not have the money. However, without maintenance, the line soon became overgrown and unusable.