File:1960-05-12 Daily Telegraph p15 cutting.jpg

Summary[edit]

RAILWAY CUT BY PROJECT

FESTINIOG PLEA AT TRIBUNAL

DAILY TELEGRAPH REPORTER

COMPENSATION for the loss of about six miles of the narrow-gauge Festiniog Railway, North Wales, to make way for a hydro-electric scheme, was sought before the Lands Tribunal in London yesterday. The cost of the deviation, the basis of the claim, was said to be about £180,000.

The railway runs from Bleanau Festiniog, Merionethshire, to Portmadoc, Caernarvonshire. It was opened in 1836 and has the first bogie-coach to be built in Britain as well as two locomotives of unique design.

The gauge is 1ft 11½in. The total length of the line is 13 miles. It was described yesterday as “ the father of narrow-gauge railways ” which attracted considerable interest among students of railway history.

The hydro-electric scheme, involving the construction of a high reservoir in the Ystradau valley, cuts across the line. Compensation is claimed from the Central Electricity Generating Board, who obtained Parliamentary approval for a Bill to authorise the hydro-electric project.

BASIS OF COMPENSATION

On the Board’s interpretation of the compensation provisions, this would amount to only a few thousand pounds. Mr. L. A. Blundell, Q.C., for the Festiniog Railway Company, submitted to the tribunal that the basis of compensation should be the reasonable cost of an equivalent reinstatement of the line.

There was a bona fide intention on the part of the company to reinstate the line. He said the line began as a gravity line carrying slate from Blaenau Festiniog to Portmadoc. It was later converted to steam and did a great trade in carrying passengers.

It declined during the last war and for eight years afterwards it was closed. The operating company was then taken over by a group of railway enthusiasts, who saw a considerable future in the tourist attraction of a circular Tour around Snowdonia.

The part of the line runing from Portmadoc to Tanybwlch was restored and was operating. Much of this work was done by volunteers and about £8.000 was subscribed. It never entered the heads of any of those associated with reviving the line that it would not be restored over its whole length.

INADEQUATE RESOURCES

Mr. Blundell conceded that the resources of the company were inadequate to meet the cost of the deviation which was now necessary. But there was no limit to the courage and ingenuity of the company’s directors. who had been exploring methods of getting the railway through even if they were denied the cost of the reinstatement.

Mr. A. F. Pegler, chairman of the Festiniog Railway Company, was questioned on this point by Mr. B. J. Mackenna, Q.C., for the Central Electricity Generating Board. He said that in 1956 he had approached a general and a brigadier at the War Office to see if the restoration could be done as training work for troops.

They were interested at that time, but the deviation was a much more difficult engineering project. It was doubtful if it could be tackled by the Army on a part-time basis, but that was one of the lines he would pursue.

Mr. Mackenna suggested the Army could never be persuaded to send enough men to construct a tunnel 1,600 yards long. Mr. Pegler replied that the Army got little opportunity in Britain to get experience in constructing tunnels.

Mr. Mackenna: It would be very difficult to persuade anyone to do a job of that size free. I am going to invite you to be perfecly candid and say there is not the faintest chance in the world of your company building these works unless you get the £150,000 from us?—The tunnel was one of the things that intetested the Army.

Are you suggesting that you and your company could raise a sum of this magnitude?—I am prepared to say in all sincerity that we would try extremely hard to get the railway through somehow.

The hearing was adjourned until to-day.