Entry posted by Beardybloke
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With a number of other commitments being a serious impediment to progress, now seems to be a good time to rewrite history, geography, economics and quite possibly geology.
Numerous plans and attempts were made over the years to create a 2ft gauge railway network in North Wales, largely inspired by the phenomenal success of the Ffestiniog Railway once steam locomotives were introduced. The most famous of these would, I suspect, be the NWNGR line from Dinas to Rhyd Ddu and Bryngwyn which eventually formed part of the Welsh Highland Railway - but what many people aren't aware of is that there were several other lines planned - from Portmadoc to Betws-y-Coed via Beddgelert and Capel Curig, as well as a line to Porth Dinallaen which was intended to share the Cambrian Line from Portmadoc to Pwhelli by laying a third rail! Other railways in the area which existed from time-to-time were the Croesor tramway (part of which was eventually absorbed into the WHR) and the Gorseddau Railway, which was defunct by the early 1890s.
With the lack of success from the North Wales Narrow Gauge Railways, other companies took on the mantle of connecting the various towns and villages in North Wales - all unsuccessfully, with most not getting beyond the planning stages. The most famous relic of these attempts is the 'Bridge to Nowhere' on the A498 from Porthmadog to Beddgelert, produced by the failed Portmadoc, Beddgelert and South Snowdon Railway plan to link Beddgelert and the quarries in Nant Gwynant with Portmadoc, and not used for the WHR route as, being intended for electric traction, the gradients and curvature were far too severe for steam-hauled trains to handle. At least one other proposal that I'm aware of was made to construct a line to Betws-y-Coed by the Snowdon and Betws-y-Coed Light Railway, also running up Nant Gwynant - various methods of beating the gradients at the north eastern end of the valley including a series of switchbacks or a series of reverse curves. I've also been reliably informed that the NWNGR had some 1 in 14 gradients planned on the route!
So where does Hafod Las fit into all of this? A number of (probably fairly wild) assumptions have been made to justify the existence of both a substantial quarry workshop complex and a comparatively busy main line serving the area - the major assumption being that one of the railways to Betws-y-Coed succeeded in being built in the first place!
The quarry side remains loosely based on the Hafod Las Quarry south of Pentre Du, a small hamlet about a mile to the west of Betws-y-Coed. The quarry itself produced slates and slabs and as far as I'm aware was quite a small concern, but with a fairly substantially-built half-mile long tramway (mostly double tracked incline) taking the slates down to the Holyhead Road (the A5) and thence to the LNWR in Betws for onward shipment. The quarry was open from c.1862 to c.1927, employing an average of 15 people and producing 3000 tons of slates and slab per annum as of 1900. It went through a variety of leaseholders (including one James Swinton Spooner, brother of Charles Easton) and closed down a number of times over the years.
I'm not sure whether the quarry's lack of success was due to poor transport links, poor rock quality or a combination of the two, but the completion of the NWNGR line to Betws removes one obstacle and my flagrant disregard for geology removes the other - in my world, the quarry was successful enough to warrant a couple of locomotives and a not-unreasonably-sized workshop capable of rolling stock construction and repairs and fairly heavy servicing of locomotives. The size of the locomotive fleet and workshop complex is far smaller than those at Penrhyn, Dinorwic or most of the Blaenau quarries, but I suspect that something in the vein of the Nantlle quarries (such as the Dorothea and Cilgwyn quarries) which between them had a number of locomotives isn't too great a jump with the assumptions that I've made. The location of the quarry can be seen on the OS Map at grid SH 780 560:
The original intention for the location of the station was in the hamlet of Pentre Du, possibly sandwiched between the road and the houses - a coaching inn would have probably been added close to the station as well as the junction having a nominal mainline and quarry connection (which would obviously be reversed depending upon which configuration the layout was operating in). There would have been a stone-built station building and goods shed which coupled with the pub adjacent to the station site would have been rather reminiscent of Waenfawr.
However, I liked the idea of the river running under the railway and with the Afon Llugwy running parallel to and some distance below the railway, I didn't think that I could stretch modeller's licence that far and still justify claiming the station's location to be Pentre Du - it may just be that I'm far too picky - so, an alternative location was sought. Potentially, the station could sit anywhere along the proposed lines near to a centre of population, such as they are in the area, but I thought that it would be rather neater if it was close to the quarries in the Llugwy valley so that I could tie in the traffic and timetabling - for my own amusement as much as anything else. I took a wander up and down the line (figuratively speaking) on an OS Map and Capel Curig jumped out at me as a suitable location for a station; with a river for the railway to cross, a road to cross the railway and river and run behind the two, and some interesting buildings in the area - a church, Pinnacle Stores, a couple of terraces and an outdoor shop that looks (thanks to the sign outside it) very much like it used to be a pub. It sounds like a pastiche, but it's all there and conveniently all on the far side of the road to the railway except for the church, as can be seen below, with the station site overlaid:
A very good photo of the area in the 1890s can be found
here (unfortunately copyrighted) - my version of history would have the railway passing down the right hand side of Llynnau Mymbyr roughly parallel to the road (using earthworks where necessary to keep the gradients workable) and would swing around the hill in the centre ground, under the road (carried on a higher bridge than exists), cross the river at quite ab oblique angle and into the station, in the field behind the chapel nearest to the camera. The Pinnacle Stores are on the right next to the road, and the white building to the left of the hill is what is now the Plas-y-Brenin centre but was, at the time, a hotel.
Very Freezer-esque! I wonder how many people will think that I've made a train set, as it certainly seems to have all of the required features for one...
This choice of location isn't without its issues. I have been told that the station was intended to be some way south of the village and the line was to follow the road to the south of the rock outcrop by the Plas-y-Brenin centre rather than the route that I've chosen to tie in with the road/rail/river plan on the baseboards. The severe gradients, especially coming up from Nant Gwynant, would probably have limited through traffic from Beddgelert quite severely and I wouldn't expect to see any goods traffic being hauled up that hill when it could come up from Betws instead, and when production from the copper mine and quarries in the Gwynant valley could be hauled for onward shipment via Beddgelert. Both of the above were, I believe, in no small part due to the need to keep as far away from the Swallow Falls as possible due to a recalcitrant landowner.
The negative points covered, there are some positives from an operating point of view - there would be a reasonable local goods traffic bringing in merchandise and produce for the local hostelries and stores, and who's to say that the area wouldn't have developed further with the rail connection and consequent expansion of the quarries? There's also a forestry plantation reasonably close to the village (though I'm not sure when that came into being) and the Moel Siabod quarries a couple of miles away, providing goods traffic for the station. By contriving a particular junction arrangement at the quarry (possibly for land availabiltiy reasons) there could be a requirement for haulage to Capel for full and empty goods stock, to be run-round and depart in the same direction from whence it arrived. Depending on what sort of level of output I gave the quarry, this could also generate a requirement for a specific workmens' train (shedded at Capel overnight) and indeed a local shunter to run minerals, empties and general freight to and from the quarry junction at Pont Cyfyng (not shown on the map, but the branch would lead off to the south-west from a junction near the bridge):
(The 1:25,000 map shows the station more than a little over scale and shows the line crossing the river (and would have to do so twice) rather than contouring around, but between the two images and allowing for modeller's licence and a bit of selective compression to bring the stores and road junction closer to the station, you should hopefully be able to get the idea)
So, with history re-written to contain a rail link from Portmadoc and Caernarfon to Betws-y-Coed (and hence Corwen, who knows?) and some rather productive quarries and mines in the locale, Hafod Las Mk. III now has a raison d'etre. Of course, for neatness and considering the relative size of the concerns, the quarry workshop should probably be a part of the Moel Siabod complex, but I've grown rather attached to the name by now!
What have I learned this time? Sometimes life looks like a train set, and I think that I'm being haunted by Cyril Freezer...
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