FROM TINY ACORNS…
In 2020, there are more than 150 operational heritage railways in the UK, running services over nearly 600 miles of track, with almost 500 stations. They welcome more than 13 million visitors every year, and not only are they valuable cultural and educational amenities, but they contribute around £400 million to the national economy. Planks of many a local tourist economy, they provide 4000 full-time equivalent jobs, supported by an army of 22,000 volunteers. Mighty oaks indeed! Yet each one of our heritage lines owe a massive debt of gratitude to the pioneers who saw fit to give up their spare time to travel to the coast of central Wales to save a little-known 2ft 3in gauge line from closure. Yes, the Talyllyn Railway is tiny in comparison to the likes of the North Yorkshire Moors, West Somerset, Severn Valley, Bluebell and Great Central railways, but where would any of these magnificent lines be today if the defining seed of the volunteer-led heritage sector had not been planted in Tywyn in 1951?
I have little doubt that a heritage revivalist movement would have started in Britain at some stage, such was the level of enthusiasm for railways among the general population. Yet if it had not started back then, who knows what might have been lost in the years that followed?
The Talyllyn story of course does not begin in 1951, when the volunteers began running public services, but in the local slate industry.
Origins
In 1843, a slate quarry opened at Bryn Eglwys, in the lofty heights above the village of Abergynolwyn. The slate was carried by packhorse to the wharf at Pennal, transferred to boats for a river trip to Aberdyfi (Aberdovey) and was loaded onto ships, a complicated procedure which limited the quarry’s output.
With Lancashire textile manufacturers looking for new ways of making money following the outbreak of the American Civil War, which cut off supplies of cotton, the lease of the quarry was bought in 1861 by the McConnells family of Manchester, who then sought a more cost-effective way to swiftly transport the slate. They looked at existing narrow gauge railways like the Ffestiniog and Corris, which has been designed and built purely to carry slate, with passenger traffic being introduced later.
The standard gauge Aberystwyth & Welsh Coast Railway, later part of the Cambrian Railways main line and subsequently the Great Western Railway, reached Tywyn in 1963, so McConnell decided to build his line from the quarry to Tywyn, the nearest point where slate could be transferred to the standard gauge railway.
