Developments on the Corris Railway

Wonderful images. I'm grinning ear to ear, before they're seen in steam together!

Dymuniadau gorau ar gyfer digwyddiad llwyddiannus iawn.

 

From the Corris website

SATURDAY 4th & SUNDAY 5th SEPTEMBER SPECIAL GALA WEEKEND including a visit from Corris Railway No. 4 to celebrate its 100th Birthday. A special gala weekend celebrating the 100th Birthday of Corris Railway No. 4 and featuring steam passenger services between Corris Station and Maespoeth Junction on both days hourly between 11:00am and 4:00pm.

The planned formation of the train services will have the Corris Railway No. 7 and Corris Railway No. 4 operating as a "top-and tail" with one loco at each end of the formation.

Subject to Covid restrictions and availability of volunteers the locomotive and carriage sheds at Maespoeth Junction will be open to let you see carriages and waggons under construction and repair and there is plenty of time to explore our Museum at Corris and browse the shop. For lunch, if required, why not visit the “Slater’s Arms” which is 200 yards from Corris station and is in the “Good Beer Guide”. And once received its beer from the train pausing on the level crossing opposite. It is CAMRA listed as having an interior of historic importance.

Tickets are purchasable on the day at Corris station. There will be a railway book sale, all priced at two pounds, in aid of the new build steam engine number 10 including some stock donated by the Historical Model Railway Society --- duplicates of ooks already housed in their library. Thanks go to the HMRC for their support.

 

Great Photos. Continued Success! from Canada!

 

A large number of new photos are on the Corris website this evening inc 2 Tattoos in action.

 

What a nice video, I particularly liked around 4 min - through the forest glade.....

 

Lovely to see a railway making great strides. All power to their collective elbows

I take it no answer on the Dyfi roadworks fill yet?

 

According to my well read copy of Boyd there was once a proposal to link the TR and the CR WIBN!!

 

Up in the quarries they coudn't of been that far apart.

 

about 3.5 miles.

 

Wasn't there a suggestion that some of the quarry workings may have connected to both (with uncertainty as to whether at the same time, same network etc). I was going to add something in my post about connecting them up, so clearly there's something in 2'3" ether...

 

Well they wouldn't have connected underground - as stated, there's over 3 miles gap between them, and whilst not all of the quarries are currently accessible, the majority are and quarry plans also show there wasn't a multiple mile long tunnel leading off from either Bryneglwys or those in the Corris cluster that is no longer accessible.

In general terms there is sometimes a tendency to quote there's X miles of underground passages in a certain mine or area, but to arrive at that figure all distances underground have to be added on top of each other as if they were joined end-to-end. So two passages 100ft long running parallel with each other would suddenly become "200ft of workings", technically not incorrect but it gives a different impression to the actuality of two tunnels 100ft long with one located 15ft above the other. Hearing claims of "5 miles of workings" very rarely means that underground workings extend for 5 linear miles. There are some exceptions where workings do extend for actual long distances, but usualy reference to N miles of workings is about as meaningless as measuring things in terms of football pitches! A case in point is the ex-shadow factory at Drakelow which is quoted as having 3.5miles of tunnels, except this consists of 4 parallel tunnels with inter-connecting link tunnels all located within about a 0.5 mile linear distance.

It's a few years ago now, but I did measure the gauge underground at BrynEgg - but can't remember the figure off-hand now.

 

Both railways being close have the same gauge and not a common gauge at that so it makes you wonder.

 

As did the Plynlimon & Hafan, not a million miles from the Morben terminus on the flat bit of the Corris, Machynlleth & River Dovey Tramroad. It's (almost) a pity Thomas Savin went and spoiled the fun with his SG Aberystwyth & Welsh Coast Rly!

In Scotland, plans to extend the Campbeltown & Machrihanish right up Kintyre fell foul of an early outbreak of sanity.

 

T

The possible link to the TR was an idea floated in 1907 by the General Manager O'Sullivan to have an elecrified line to Talyllyn Lake and Abergynolwen. It was no more than his idea and outside of the Edwardian tourist season it's hard to see what traffic it was supposed to carry. As it transpired the link was developed using buses. An earlier extension idea was floated by Dolgellau RDC to have the CR run to there in the wake of the 1896 Light Railways legislation.

 

IIRC, wasn't O'Sullivan the chap who thought Sunday services (in a strongly non-conformist area) would be a good idea?

The northern outpost of the Upper Corris branches, a location I've seen given as Tir Stent, was indeed not too far from Dogellau, on paper .....

Even if common sense had taken a long leave of absence, you'd have to suspect lines of that nature wouldn't have been much of an improvement on the horse carriages back then, which were likely more than adequate for whatever local traffic existed (certainly outside the short holiday season of that era).

Wondering about disposable income for manual workers, were quarrymen still housed in 'barracks' accomodation during the working week, during the period between the end of great stike at Penrhyn and the outbreak of WWI?

With slate traffic already adequately provided for, on both sides of the Dulas/Dysynni watershed, the prospects for any return on investment surely couldn't have convinced anyone even vaguely familiar with the area. Mind you, even stranger plans came closer to hatching further north.

Edited para 2: 'Ty Nant' now reads Tir Stent' (as per source, but can't vouch for either!)

 

I have been told that in the preservation era there was a proposal to extend the Tallylyn to the lake.

 

Nothing more than a few pipe dreams by the less "practical" members. Doing it would require a viaduct across Nant Gwernol that would dwarf the one at Dolgoch. Unless some severe down-grades were used the terminus would be high up on the hillside above the lake.

John Bate did a summary of his views in the Talyllyn News many years ago. He concluded that it would be easier to strike off from the existing line near Rhydyronen and run up the valley floor, skirting Abergynolwyn village to reach the lakeside. He also commented (in his typically forthright manner) that the TR had more important things to do with scarce resources!

 

Fascinating stuff this, makes me wonder if a certain Reverend Awdry heard about this and adapted it somehow into his Railways Series books, as the Skarloey Railway (based off the TR) did run up to and around a lake in one big loop line.