File:1957-05-18 Picture Post cover.jpg

Summary[edit]

The barristers’ toy train Soon, four miles of track that once formed part of the world’s oldest narrow-gauge railway will be officially re-opened to the public. And it will all be due to 850 railway enthusiasts— amongst them doctors, dentists, barristers and students— who gave up their holidays and weekends to work on it. Just for the sake of feeling that this is their railway.

The only professional in the business is the engine driver

by JEFFREY MARK

BUSINESS is booming for the Festiniog Railway Society. This summer the company estimates that nearly one hundred thousand passengers will travel along the four-mile track from Portmadoc to Duffws. And the only professional in the business is the engine driver. All the work of the booking-office, the ticket collectors, porters, guards and signalmen is done by members of the Society.

The railway was opened in 1833 on a narrow-gauge track with a horse-drawn ‘dandy car’, and was mechanised in the sixties. Passengers were carried, but its main job was hauling slate nine miles down from the quarries at Blaenau Festiniog to Portmadoc, on the North Wales coast.

All went well with the tiny mountain railway until 1910, when the slate traffic began to fall off. Then the 1914-1918 war increased its financial difficulties, and six or seven years’ neglect during the Second World War finished it. In 1946 the Festiniog Railway was closed down. But in 1951 a few enthusiasts got together and decided to reopen it. The present Society was launched with membership open to all on a modest subscription basis of £1 per year.

The little Society faced an enormous task. The narrow-gauge track (1 ft. 11 5/8 ins. as opposed to the present standard gauge of 4 ft. 8½ ins.) was hopelessly overgrown with grass, weeds, brambles, shrubs and even trees. The wooden coaches and tiny old-fashioned engines, some of them nearly a hundred years old, were decayed and rust-rotted. Part of the engine shed roof had fallen in, machinery and working gear had broken down; everywhere there were piles of junk which once represented much of the railway's equipment.

It was estimated that merely to restart operations would cost about £50,000. But the little Society, beginning with only two or three fanatical enthusiasts, slowly increased its membership until today it is about 850. The first part of the track, from Portmadoc to the engine sheds at Boston Lodge, was put into service in July, 1955. A year later it was extended to Minffordd, and this year to Penrhyndeudraeth. Now the Society is pushing on to open up the track to Tan-y-Bwlch, with the old terminus at Duffws, nine miles away, as its ultimate goal.

Whatever it cost to achieve all this, an estimated £10,000 was contributed in voluntary labour by the members of the Society themselves, working week-ends and holidays. Barristers, doctors, dentists, company directors, accountants, students from Manchester and Merseyside, there was plenty of work for them all. Platelayers and railwaymen, doing a busman’s holiday, showed other members how to oil and repair engines in the sheds or how to do rail telegraph and other constructional work along the line. For those who liked manual work in the mountain air there were always working parties clearing the track. And for wives and girl friends there were always coaches to be painted or seats to be mended in the old sit-up-and-beg wooden carriages.

The barristers helped with the technical task of buying the railway and clearing away legal difficulties obstructing full control. Now the Festiniog Railway is independent of British Railways and is governed by a registered private company working hand in glove with the voluntary Society. Despite the subscriptions and the unstinted voluntary help, the company pays no dividend. But nobody cares very much.

The best part of the line is still to open up. The track climbs steadily up from Portmadoc to Duffws and in some places is cut out of the sheer face of cliffs hundreds of feet up. Magnificent mountain scenery is enhanced by views of the sea and villagers along the line are beginning to use the line instead of buses. For holiday visitors it is a first-class attraction.

The oldest narrow-gauge railway in the world; amateurs doing a skilled professional job; a tiny railway, but an enormous task; serious work, but great fun; not paying, but well worth it. The Festiniog enthusiasts are not moved by ordinary considerations. The force that really drives them is the fact that the little railway really is theirs. Theirs to nurse and rear. Their baby. And they love it!