Ffestiniog Railway
They said the train from Porthmadog to Blaenau Ffestiniog would never run – today a ride on one of Britain’s most daring feats of engineering makes for a spectacular journey, says Julie Brominicks
Gwynedd
The fluting whistles of curlews and steam trains drift across the egret-stalked marsh between the Cob and the mountainous glare of Snowdon, Mount Cnicht and the Moelwyns in north Wales. The Cob Embankment was built across the River Glaslyn by William Madocks and John Williams in 1811 with the hope of making a post route to Ireland. But when Thomas Telford reached Ireland first with his route via Holyhead, Madocks built a harbour here instead. It was ideal for the export of slate, a material in huge demand.
It was between here and Blaenau Ffestiniog that in 1836 James Spooner laid tracks narrow enough to negotiate the route’s hill bends and tunnels. Horses hauled empty wagons up 13 miles of tracks to the quarries and returned them to the town of Porthmadog loaded with slate.
THE IMPOSSIBLE LINE
The Ffestiniog was the first narrow-gauge railway to replace its wagons with steam engines despite scepticism from engineer Robert Stevenson, who told quarry manager Samuel Holland that “no locomotive engine could be planned to work on such a line.” Samuel’s nephew Charles Holland disagreed however, and James Spooner’s son Charles commissioned George England to design engines that were strong and nimble enough to cope with the tortuous climb. The engines were so successful, they were copied
THE TRAIN CHUGS ALONG, LULLED BY ITS RHYTHMIC RUMBLE”
worldwide, and three of them still run today. The Victorians were also eager for romantic landscapes and in 1865 the Ffestiniog became the first narrow-gauge railway to accommodate passengers.
SNAKE TO THE SEA
Leaving the Cob, the railway climbs steeply through sessile oak forests with fleeting views of the River Dwyryd snaking silverly to sea. Lulled by its rhythmic rumble, the train chugs along bracken-coloured tracks, emitting steam that dissolves into mountain mist, entirely at one with the surrounding landscape.
To gain a gradual ascent the track turns a complete spiral up Rhuallt Hill, is swallowed by a tunnel, then emerges onto the banks of Llyn Ystradau. The slate industry collapsed long ago but the railway is still much loved, and in 2011 the equally pretty Welsh Highland Railway, running between
Caernarfon and Porthmadog, was also reopened for passengers to use.
We have visionary Victorian engineers, entrepeneurs and poorly paid labourers to thank for the Ffestiniog and Welsh Highland Railways, and contemporary volunteers for their restoration and rescue. A thousand volunteers still support 150 paid staff in maintaining track and stone banks, clearing fallen trees, serving tea, building signal boxes and even constructing new locomotives.
Meanwhile, my train arrives in Blaenau Ffestiniog. The whistle blows and the platform is a-billow with pungent smoke. Raw and beautiful, Blaenau Ffestiniog sits in the belly of Snowdonia and is overlooked by jagged mountains. Trees are few and bent, and terraced stone houses bear witness to the industrial age in which they and the railway were built.
www.festrail.co.uk A limited winter service runs until the end of March, after which the full timetable resumes.