Slate Running
Built between 1832 and 1836, the Ffestiniog Railway served the slate mines of Blaenau Ffestiniog in North Wales for more than 100 years. Now a popular tourist and enthusiast destination, the railway has not overlooked its reason for existence – with its gravity train a significant part of its special events and draw for enthusiasts.
Blaenau Ffestiniog is often referred to as both ‘the slate capital of Wales’ and ‘the town that roofed the world’, with three separate slate quarries commencing operations within a decade on the Allt-fawr mountain from 1819. The railway was built to replace the former method of horse and cart transport from the quarries to the River Dwyryd, where it would then be loaded onto river boats for onward travel to Porthmadog, where it would again be transferred onto seafaring vessels. The method was expensive in both time and quantity of broken slates, and thus in 1932 an Act of Parliament incorporated the Festiniog Railway company (with the Anglicised single F spelling). Responsibility for the survey and construction fell to Worcestershire-born James Spooner, who had surveyed the route between 1830 and 1831 and became manager following the opening of the line.
The continual downhill grade enabled loaded trucks, manned by brakemen to keep them in check, to roll freely all the way down to Porthmadog. Horses continued as the form of motive power to return the empties to the quarry summits, but as demand for slate and the traffic increased, steam took over from July 1863 in the form of Small England 0-4-0STTs Nos. 3 Mountaineer and 1 Princess.
Continued increase in demand led to an act being passed in 1869 that permitted the line to be double-tracked to improve capacity; this, however, would have been extremely expensive, not least because of the line negating some tight cliff edges and cuttings that would need to be widened. Thus, the double Fairlie locomotives were introduced from 1872.
Slate traffic began to decline in the early 20th century, hastened by the availability of new roofing materials, and a series of quarrymen strikes between 1900 and 1903 saw the slate industry decline rapidly. A hope for postwar revival never arose; with road transport also proving more versatile and passenger services having ceased on September 15, 1939, the whole line closed at the start of the quarry holidays on August 1, 1946.
Important collection
Thankfully, the line was ‘abandoned’ with everything left where it stood, which has resulted in perhaps one of the best historically relevant collections of rolling stock on a heritage line in the UK.
Gravity power played a part in the early days of the Ffestiniog’s revival, with volunteers riding wagons back down the gradients after a day out repairing the line. The operation of authentic slate wagon gravity trains was reintroduced in 1987 as a gala attraction and
Built between 1832-36, the Ffestiniog Railway served the slate mines of Blaenau Ffestiniog for more than 100 years. Now a popular tourist and enthusiast destination, the railway has not overlooked its reason for existence – with its gravity train a significant part of its special events and draw for enthusiasts, reports Owen Hayward in words and pictures.
such is its popularity that operation continues to this day. These tend to be confined to a few special event weekends each year, though training trips have been run on occasions outside of these, with notice usually given in advance through the railway and supporting group’s social media pages to enable people opportunity to see them.
One annual fixture of the FR’s event calendar is its Bygones (formerly Victorian) Weekend, usually held over the second full weekend of October. This year’s event took place on October 7-9 (as featured in issue 299). Due to a maintenance backlog that was heightened due the Covid-19 lockdowns, the availability of the gravity train for this weekend was not known until later than normal, which resulted in just a single trip first thing each morning; previous years saw a second working in the afternoon that alternated between the full rake being taken up to Ddualt, or a shortened rake on the rear of a vintage passenger working.
I was fortunate to be a guest passenger on the first gravity working of this year’s Bygones event, an honour normally reserved for qualified brakemen and volunteers from the Festiniog Railway Heritage Working Group. Meeting at Minffordd station at 7am, those of us riding that day were introduced to head brakemen David High and assistant Rob Bishop, who gave a very thorough safety briefing. Make no mistake, it may look all fun and games, but with all vehicles unfitted, tight clearances on the line, and very little space between wagons themselves, one wrong move could lead to serious injury and potentially the knock-on effect of seeing the gravity train operation restricted.
Shortly after 7.30am, Double Fairlie No. 10 Merddin Emrys arrived, having collected the train of 39 wagons from Minffordd sidings. With cushions provided to sit on, the guests selected a wagon at the front (or what would become the rear) of the train to ride in while the team of brakesmen positioned themselves on those at the opposite end of the wagons.
At 8am sharp, the double Fairlie set off up the hill towards Tan-y-Bwlch with the slates in tow. Despite a forecast of high winds, things were remarkably subdued as the train wound its way round the tight bends and cuttings on its climb to the line’s halfway station, from where, after a short stop for water, it continued to Ddualt (some in the past have continued to Summit Cutting on the ‘new’ stretch of line around the reservoir).
With brakes on the wagons, Merddin Emrys detached and ran into the sidings, its crew returning a few moments later to give the wagons a push for its descent. A final check by
the brakesmen and permission obtained from control to commence the journey, brakes were released and gently we started rolling back down the grade. By this point, it had begun to rain and the open wagons provide no shelter. One can truly empathise with the quarry workers of old who would have no doubt had to endure this situation on a regular basis.
To ensure enough momentum is achieved to see gravity working through Tan-y-Bwlch and the tight bends beyond, a stop is made above Garnedd tunnel. Control is called and until the uphill passenger working has arrived at the station, the gravity train proceeds no further. Thankfully, it was only a short wait and we were soon off once more, coasting through Tan-y-Bwlch with ease, and passengers from the waiting train and hikers all admiring the spectacle.
The difference between the journey down to that of up is hard to miss; for the uphill working, the downhill grade keeps the wagons apart and couplings taut for the most part, weighed down by the few that are loaded; downward travel the opposite. As the brakes are applied and released at what is now the front of the train, the wagons bump into one another, which, without the luxury of sprung buffers, can easily catch riders off-guard. Consider there can be about a foot of space between each loose coupled wagon – a train of 39 slates will accumulate 38 feet of slack between the first vehicle and last.
Around Whistling Curve, across Cai Mawr, and through the passing point at Rhiw Goch we rolled, the brakesmen keeping speed in check by way of brake applications as instructed by chief brakesman Dave. A slow for the road crossings at Penrhyn and then gently back down into Minffordd, we returned soaked through but exhilarated by the experience.
Keeping control
Managing the descent is a fine art and one that has been perfected through trial and error over the years. Control would have been maintained by very few people hopping between wagons to apply and release brakes as required, but such operation would never be allowed by modern safety standards, so a team of up to 10 brakesmen can be seen riding the frontmost vehicles.
“Because it’s a loose coupled train, we want to keep it compressed when running downhill. The way to do that is to apply the brakes at the front first, then successively further back down the train as we go along,” explained the day’s head brakesman, David.
“It’s what we call ‘digital braking’ – in that the head brakesman sits on the lead wagon and applies his brake, indicating where necessary to the supporting brakesmen with a number of fingers how many brakes are needed to be applied at that point.
“In theory we have up to 10 brakes that can be applied this way, although we rarely go above five. If we find we can’t control it, a red flag goes up and that indicates for everyone to apply their brake.
“When it comes to taking them off, again we want to keep them compressed so they are taken off coming back up the train.”
Though the line is downhill all the way from Summit Cutting, some stretches are, of course, steeper than others, and that all plays a part in the control of the train, including working with the FR’s automatic signalling.
“If the gravity train arrives first, the automatic signalling system creates the path for
that and won’t allow the uphill train in until we have stopped in the station, so it is important we stop before initiating the track circuit,” David continued.
“The stop outside Garnedd Tunnel is a convenient place to do that, and there is quite a steep descent into the tunnel so the train gets away well there. That ensures we get through the station at 10mph and have enough inertia to reach Penrhediad.
“One of the curious things about the train is that we have a fixed number of loaded wagons at the front with a lot of empty ones behind. When empties get to places with lots of tight reverse curves, they have more inertia than momentum; a train with more empties than loaded wagons has a lot more drag and will act differently to a short, full train. You can start a short, full train at Tan-y-Bwlch and get it all the way round, but if it has empty ones it will slow more. Ironically, that means the bigger the train, the more difficult it can be to get down.”
The loaded wagons vary between full slate loads and water tanks masked by slate sheets, adding the necessary weight to maintain momentum on sections such as these, and thanks to all this fine-tuning over the years, coupled with the development of recorded safety management systems and risk assessments, the gravity train has been able to operate without outside intervention for the last 35 years.
Though the two subsequent days were blessed with sun for their morning descents, a ride on the slates in the lashing rain such as the one I experienced truly puts into perspective the harsh conditions that quarrymen of the day would have had to contend with for the sake of their jobs. To have the ability to recreate this in the modern era should not be taken for granted, and the dedication of the team behind
its continued operation is to be admired and thanked.
Quality over quantity
In the past, the slate train has run with an impressive 60 wagons, the current deficit owing to a backlog of maintenance on the restored fleet in the wake of the pandemic.
“The train isn’t as long as it has been in the past,” said Will High, leader of the wagon restoration team. “That was nine years ago, in 2013. We are concentrating on quality of restoration rather than quantity. Our most recent project has been overhauling the brake gear to improve performance and the maintainability of it all.
“The longest train known to work down from the quarry was 120 wagons – but that’s a lifetime’s work, and possibly someone else’s too. We’d really like to run a 100-wagon train at some point; it’s a goal that’s out there, but timescale – who knows? We are fortunate that there is money for projects at the moment; if you’re going to do something and you show you can do it, then you generally get the money for it, but that won’t last forever.”
Unlike many heritage railways, the FR has ample covered accommodation to store its wagons, something the 300ft-long and fiveroad wide Waggon Tracks shed at Minffordd was built for in 2016.
“When we set out to build this shed, we had something in the region of 225 pre-1954 wagons,” said Will. “The aim was to get as many as possible inside, which we’ve pretty much achieved, though we might need to spend a weekend or two reorganising to squeeze a little bit more of the collection in.”
Covered accommodation improves the life of both restored and unrestored stock, the benefit of which is that time doesn’t need to be continually spent revisiting completed projects to stop deterioration, and thus that time can be spent on restoring another vehicle.
The slate wagons may, of course, be the most iconic wagons on the FR, but there is a treasure trove of a collection beyond it, said Will: “We have a quite a few wooden-bodied granite wagons which are conversions of three-ton slate wagons carried out pre-preservation to carry granite from Brookes quarry, much of which is now lost beneath the Tanygrisiau reservoir. One is nearly done up here in the shed and another is at Beamish, ready to come back at some point, so we are working towards having a granite train as well.”
Bolster wagons, gunpowder vans, coal wagons... even a hearse van can be found amid the restoration projects.
Running lines
And it’s not just wagon history. With around 500 yards of track within the Waggon Tracks shed alone, much of the rail is also historically significant. “The track itself was something we wanted to preserve as the last of the 19th century bullhead rail was coming out of the main line. We wanted to use that, so we have a ‘big store’ of it in case someone wanted to build a heritage section of line, and we’ve loaded up spare lengths in the two-foot, so rather than it sitting outside rusting, it is inside, protected and fulfilling a need.”
Four of the five roads have been laid with bullhead rail, while the fifth and central road is a unique combination of two very different types. Double-head rail was a precursor to bullhead, used as it was theorised that once one side had become worn, the rail could be flipped over, and the other side used. A clever idea but in practice not so much, as the bottom side would wear into the chairs, while the worn top side would not fit into these when it was turned over.
The second type is a short length of T-bulb rail, which is exactly as it sounds – rail in a T shape and which pre-dates the steam era, having been used on horse-drawn lines. Rails were usually fastened to two separate stone blocks rather than a single wooden sleeper between them, with larger single blocks beneath rail joints.
Other paraphernalia includes slab trollies used on the slate wharfs and blacksmiths tools that may become part of the project financed by a £3.1 million National Lottery Heritage Fund that includes improvements to interpretation and conservation of areas of Boston Lodge Works, where the blacksmith’s
shop will be fitted out and the tools potentially displayed.
There are even new replica projects being considered, including a ‘carriage truck’ – a vehicle that was built for transporting horse-drawn traps.
The F&WHR’s general manager Paul Lewin has praised the efforts of the team behind the gravity train and wagon restoration. He said: “The volunteers are an absolute credit to our railway.
“Hard-working and dedicated, this team has some of the best people with the best ethos you can get and their commitment to projects mean we all able to enjoy the gravity train, which has a very firm place in Ffestiniog Railway history and operation – and we have no plans to change that.”
To show your support for the Festiniog Railway Heritage Group and its goals, and to discover further information about some of its projects and activities currently taking place, head online now and visit the website frheritage.org.uk