THE NORTH WALES COAST RAILWAY NOTICE
BOARD
Rheilffordd Arfordir Gogledd Cymru Bwrdd
hysbyseb
Cwm Prysor Special
This site is dedicated to all our regular contributors and
supporters, and especially the rail staff of North Wales.
Edition of 17 March 2004
Cwm
Prysor memories
We recently published this picture of Cwm Prysor viaduct taken by Larry
Goddard on 21 February, with a request for anyone who remembers
this railway to write in. We have been rewarded with a splendid
selection of pictures from Robert Darlaston, showing what a
trip on the line was like in its last days, and we've dedicated this
issue of the Notice Board to them. Robert travelled the line
on 15 September 1958.
We start at the old Blaenau Ffestiniog North station, the remains of
which are passed today by trains heading for the new Central station
opened in the early 1980s. The Derby Lightweight DMU waits to return as
the 12:20 to Llandudno. From here, Robert would have had to walk across
town to the ex-Great Western Central station as there was no connection
between the two lines. The present link was built to facilitate the
closure of the Cwm Prysor line while continuing to serve the
Trawsfynydd power station, and we believe was funded partly by the
Liverpool water board whose new reservoir blocked the route of the GWR
line. It had originally been intended to rebuild the line at a higher
level past the Tryweryn reservoir, a two-mile new line which was to
have cost £1.1 million, but eventually it was decided that the
traffic on the Trawsfynydd - Bala section did not justify retention.
Here is the old Central station with pannier tank 9669 after
arrival with the 11.50 from Bala - and, gosh! it's raining! The
following pictures were all taken from the 2.20 pm Blaenau Ffestiniog
Central to Bala Junction on 15 September 1958.
The invisible loco
was 4645 and the train comprised one non-corridor carriage with
about six passengers!
This is the climb along the ledge from Trawsfynydd to Cwm Prysor ....
... the viaduct, to compare with Larry's modern view. The viaduct
opened to traffic in July 1882, the full route being brought into
service later that year.
Map image on this page reproduced from the Ordnance Survey Get-a-map service.
Image reproduced with kind permission of Ordnance Survey and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland.
... and Cwm Prysor station, opened in 1902, and treated that
afternoon as a request
stop, although not advertised as such. The station house
at Cwm Prysor, 1200 feet above sea level, survives and can be seen from
the A4212 road which was not built until after the railway had
closed. A good colour view of the section on the ledge
appears on page 236 of The Railways of Wales circa 1900 by G.B.
Jones
and D Dunstone (Gomer Press 2000).
Bala station, with 4617 on the 3.40 pm to Trawsfynydd on
the right, and the 2.20 pm from Blaenau on which Robert had arrived on
the left. This site later became a small industrial estate, known to
many modellers as the one-time site of the Kivoli Centre. The
small market town of Bala, at 28 miles from the nearest station, is
probably more remote from National Rail access than most other places
of its size in Wales or England.
Bala Junction, a mile beyond Bala, where the line from Blaenau
Ffestiniog met the Ruabon - Barmouth 'main line' which closed in
1965, although two sections happily have lived again. The site of Bala
Junction station is now the Bala terminus of the narrow gauge Bala
Lake Railway, and further east there is of course the Llangollen
Railway from Llangollen to Carrog, which features frequently in
these pages. In the picture, 4645 has arrived on the 2.20
pm from Blaenau, and passengers are transferring to the adjacent
platform for the 12.45 pm Pwllheli - Chester (arr 6.1 pm).
The last ever passenger train from Blaenau Ffestiniog to Bala was a
Stephenson Railway Society special on 22 January, 1961, a year
after regular passenger traffic had ceased. In the picture, pannier
tanks 4645 and 8761 back onto the stock at Blaenau
Ffestiniog Central.
The last train of all over Cwm Prysor was a freight train from Bala to
Blaenau Ffestiniog and back hauled by pannier tank 9752 on 27
January, 1961, and aboard was M.E. Morton Lloyd, who wrote
up his memorable journey in
the April 1961 Railway Magazine, p.270-271. A typical rainstorm
was under
way, and a gale blowing which blew down the telephone lines between
Arenig and Trawsfynydd, making it impossible to withdraw the
single-line token; after some discussion it was decided to proceed as
there were not likely to be any other trains about, except perhaps the
gangers' trolley.
Mr Lloyd noted that construction of the new reservoir was well under
way, with construction vehicles crossing the line; the project was the
source of much controversy about welsh villages being drowned to
provide water for England. The National
Library of Wales website has a period picture of protesters at the
grand opening by the Lord Mayor of Liverpool.
Another of our correspondents on the subject is Gordon H. Craig,
who writes: ' I have not travelled on the line, but having watched the
first item in the Ian Allan/SBS Video Railway Roundabout 1961
video many times I feel as if I have - highly recommended viewing, with
excellent footplate shot of the leading pannier crossing the pictured
viaduct; pity the S.L.S. got such a wet day for the final passenger
run. My only "exposure" to this line was last August, driving back from
my first visit to the Ffestiniog Railway (highlight a guided tour of
Boston Lodge Works and sheds which even my wife enjoyed!) to our hotel
in Ruthin via Bala and Corwen - my son and I at first could not believe
the line of bushes etc.so high up the mountain-side was the route of
the line; could a lower route not have been possible, one wonders?'
We hope you have enjoyed this little excursion into the past, at a time
when the future of rural railways is again under discussion. Let's end
with a final glimpse into another time found by Robert Darlaston in a
1942 GWR traffic notice: '7.25 pm Ruabon - Barmouth: If this
train is full, or if the 2.10 pm ex-Paddington is running 25 minutes or
more late, the 7.25 pm train must be despatched to time and a Relief
train (worked by the engine and coaches of the 6.10 pm Llangollen -
Wrexham) must be run as far as necessary.' - 17 March