Featured Article Summary #131

The Talyllyn Railway is a narrow-gauge railway in Wales that runs for 7¼ miles from Tywyn on the coast to Nant Gwernol near Abergynolwyn. It opened in 1865 to carry slate from quarries to Tywyn, and it was the first narrow-gauge railway in Britain authorized by Parliament to carry passengers hauled by steam. Even though it did not receive enough funding for many years, it stayed running, and in 1951 it became the first railway in the world to be preserved as a volunteer-run heritage railway. After being preserved, it became a tourist attraction, growing its collection and building new locomotives and carriages. In 1976 it was extended to a new station at Nant Gwernol, and in 2005 Tywyn Wharf station was greatly rebuilt to include a larger museum facility; in 2021 it was named a World Heritage Site as part of the Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales. Its story also inspired the fictional Skarloey Railway and helped inspire the film The Titfield Thunderbolt. The railway’s name is not certain. It may come from the parish of Tal-y-llyn, which includes the railway’s eastern end, or from Tal-y-llyn, a large glacial lake near the foot of Cadair Idris. The Talyllyn Railway uses an unusual track gauge that is shared by only three other public railways in the UK. These are the Corris Railway, the Plynlimon and Hafan Tramway, and the Campbeltown and Machrihanish Light Railway in Scotland. Slate quarrying started in the hills above Tywyn in the 1830s, but only the large Bryn Eglwys quarry really grew. Its slate was carried by packhorse to Pennal, then by boat to Aberdyfi, a slow and expensive route that limited output. In the early 1860s, William McConnel formed the Aberdovey Slate Company and expanded Bryn Eglwys, building a narrow-gauge railway to Tywyn so slate could connect to the standard-gauge railway; after legal approval and engineering work, the line opened to passengers in December 1866 as Britain’s first purpose-built steam narrow-gauge public railway. The Talyllyn Railway opened with two steam locomotives and started using “one engine in steam” to keep trains from colliding, with work initially based at Ty Dwr before moving to new engineering works at Pendre in February 1867. Stations and stops were added over time, and a branch line served Abergynolwyn village by carrying coal and building materials down a steep incline while hauling waste back up for disposal. The railway carried slate and general goods and also developed significant passenger traffic, with slate production reaching 8,000 long tons per year by 1880 and passenger numbers rising from 11,500 in 1867 to over 23,000 by 1877.