The Miners' Tramway at Llechwedd threatened with closure.

Evening All,

Sad news from North Wales - Quarry Tours at Llechwedd Slate Quarries in Blaenau Ffestiniog are proposing to close the Miners' Tramway.

However, there is a campaign to get them to change their minds and an on-line petition has been set up to with this end in mind. If you feel that the Miners' Tramway is an important part of North Wales' heritage, please add your name to those that have already signed :

http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitio...pt&utm_medium=email&utm_source=share_petition

You can also let them know your views in an e-mail :

bookings@llechwedd.co.uk

This is their web site for anyone not familiar with what Llechwedd has to offer :

http://www.llechwedd-slate-caverns.co.uk/

We must hope that if enough people sign the petition and e-mail their views, they will reconsider their plans.

 

I am very sad to hear this. It is such a great attraction. I have been several times and always enjoyed it. I will be signing the petition.

 

Hmmm. Sad news, but I can't help feeling that Quarry Tours are a commercial tourism business and whether they retain or close part of it (or indeed all of it) is their business. Literally.

 

If we adopt that attitude as the State continues to withdraw from the management of cultural, historical and heritage activities and devolves them to commercial enterprises, we will lose much.

 

Sorry but this line is of relatively recent construction (for tourist use) and is only part of the bigger picture here.

P.H.

 

It would appear possible that the railway will re-open eventually, but perhaps not on the same route.

 

According to the newspaper report - link below - all is not doom and gloom.

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/local-news/llechwedd-slate-caverns-underground-revamp-2514029

Cheers

Alan

 

Thanks houghtonga. You beat me to it.

thanks ragl. That says more than the Press Release!

 

My point is one of general principle, not specific.

 

I agree to some extent but the attractions at Llechwedd Slate Caverns have never been managed by the state. However the WAG have given some funding for the proposals mentioned in the newspaper.

 

Yes indeed.It was intended as a commercial enterprise, i.e. a means of making money. It seems the appeal has waned so they are endeavouring to refresh it. They may or may not be right in the way they are going about it but there is no point in waxing sentimental over something created expressly for the tourist with no direct connection to the past.

PH

 

That is self evidently tosh and doesn't require me to explain why.

 

I fear you are being disingenuous. The railway here was specifically installed as a means of getting visitors (including myself) deep into a slate mine and is not, in itself, the principle attraction . No different in principle to the one at Morwellan Quay. If those operating the visitor attraction at Blaenau think recasting the operation to do without the railway in its present form will help their finances then it is their prerogative. No "petition signing" by gricers will alter this.

PH

 

Which sounds entirely sensible to me. I went to Llechwedd back in 2011 and, to me, the presentation felt quite dated.

 

Sorry, please explain to this thicky which bit is self evidently tosh then I'll attempt to work out why for myself:

1. That there is no point in waxing sentimental over it?
2. That it was created expressly for the tourist?
or 3. That it has no direct connection to the past?

 

One thing I did notice when I visited a few years ago was that you could see daylight in some of the chambers of the tramway tour. Evidence that the "open cast" recovery of the remaining slate pillars had reached a level that was exposing the chambers of the tramway tour. From the above press release it would appear that they may be relocating the tramway at a lower level to allow more slate to be recovered from above

 

All preservation projects whatever the sources of their funding are a conglomeration of historic buildings and artefacts, anachronisms, reconstruction, contemporary developments etc. and are a pastiche of what once was. They serve as a reminder of the past for those of us old enough to remember, and as a means to glimpse and understand something of the past for those too young. Most have economic benefits to the region beyond merely providing an income stream to the owner or operator. The Miners Tramway was half funded by the Welsh Tourist Board who recognised the benefit it would bring to Blaenau by encouraging tourists. Given the requirements of H&S, the tramway is reasonably effective in providing tourists with a taste of the experiences of many miners. That it was built in 1972 is wholly irrelevant. The assertions of paulhitch and kscanes are as invalid in relation to Llechwedd as they would be if made about Crich Tramway Museum for example.

 

It is the slate mine which is the attraction with the tramway as a means to an end. The slate mine is not an adjunct to the railway. The argument put forward by Enterprise could be applied to the souvenir shop with equal force.

PH

 

The whole concept of a 'Miner's Tramway' springs more from the pages of a tourist brochure than the history books anyway. Whilst manriding trucks do exist for use on inclines, they would not have been in general use - reserved instead for visitors, inspections etc. In the main the miners would nagivate through the mines vertically by the use of manways, usually located seperately from the inclines. The manways would usually consist of either steps or sometimes zig-zag paths. Miners found to have been manriding on trucks on the inclines could be severely disciplined. Once at the level they would be working at, the miners would nagivate horizontally by walking - none of the distances were that far, even in the largest mines. Whilst I'd hesitate to categorically state the use of manriding trucks such as those found at the tourist attraction never occured (that's just setting y'self up to be proved wrong!), they were certainly not a characteristic feature of the slate industry.

In that respect, the 'Miner's Tramway' at Llechwedd has little historic basis - but then the whole point of the show mine is that it's a tourist attraction which needs to offer interesting things to draw the visitors in. To travel on manriding trucks into the darkness of the mine is nothing like a preserved narrow gauge railway ride found elsewhere, and for a number of decades Greaves have clearly felt it has been a sucessful feature to attract visitors. For those that bothered to read the press release, it would seem that they are extending their underground tours and combining the 'deep level' tour with the upper 'tramway' tour - so presumably the visitors having riden down the incline will then make their way back up to the higher levels via some other route, before then taking in the chambers which formed the tramway tour. The press release also states that they have a futher use for the 'tramway' railway, so what is there actually to get so upset about? So they're going to lift the track from its current route (which was laid specifically for the tourist ride) and going to re-lay and use it somewhere else (specifically for a tourist ride). The implication is you'll still be able to go on a train ride - just it won't be into the bit of the mine it currently does.

 

Daft analogy. Crich Tramway Museum is a museum of trams, so closing the tramway would be pretty fundamental. Llechwedd Slate Caverns is about slate. The clue is in the name. The Miners tramway is a small part of it, a ride, an attraction. It is not old and it does not represent anything old. It is no more heritage than an icecream stall.

Don't get me wrong, I like the miners tramway and I am as keen as the next enthusiast that as many railways as possible in as many forms as possible are retained, but I'm not a believer in "everything must be preserved at all costs". Llechwedd Slate Caverns is not fixed at one point in time and is free to develop as its management see fit.

Anyway, I understand that two of the carriages have just been rebuilt by the FR. Do you think they (Llechwedd) would be having carriages rebuilt for a railway they're going to close?