Other Goods Traffic On the Talyllyn Railway

[Greg Wetzel]

I understand upon reading their history section on their website that the Talyllyn Railway dealt with slate. I was wondering if they handled any other goods traffic, either as they were still a railway company or amongst the years they have been a heritage railway.

 

[Llanigraham]

They handled "general goods" to Abergonolwyn, including coal down the incline to the village, and allegedly there was a "night soil" tank that used to trundle up and down it as well.

 

[Llanigraham]

Add,
I'm not sure any goods were carried after Rolt took over, although I think they might send some stuff up to the cafe by train.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Read "Talyllyn Pioneers" - excellent book , describes how the TR met almost all of the needs of the community from beer to potatoes etc , even carrying away night soil ! - even in very early preservation days there was a limited parcels service.

As did the Ffestiniog in the days when roads were not competitive.

 

[PeterC]

Read "Talyllyn Pioneers" - excellent book , describes how the TR met almost all of the needs of the community from beer to potatoes etc , even carrying away night soil ! - even in very early preservation days there was a limited parcels service.

As did the Ffestiniog in the days when roads were not competitive.

From the bottom of the Abergynolwyn incline there were actually branches which allowed coal to be delivered direct to some of the cottages in the village.

These branches are clearly shown on the 6inch maps on the National Library of Scotland site
https://maps.nls.uk/view/102185119#zoom=6&lat=4136&lon=1949&layers=BT

I believe that the track, which had never had locomotives over it, was taken up by the preservation society in its early days to use on the main line.

 

[Calthrop]

I believe that the track, which had never had locomotives over it, was taken up by the preservation society in its early days to use on the main line.

One gathers that there are some who greatly deplore this lifting of track on the incline from Abergynolwyn station down to the village, and of the street-tramway-type tracks running from the bottom of the incline to serve points in the village, as an act of vandalism, committed with total lack of regard for the past. The folk who express horror thus, perhaps fail to realise the desperate struggle that the first preserved lines had, in the 1950s, just to survive and run trains at all: it was not only on the Talyllyn that hard decisions had to be taken, to perform "acts of destruction" in various contexts, to meet immediate acute needs. It can be reckoned perfectly likely that it broke the "perpetrators' " hearts to do these things which they found they had to do: but rocks, hard places, and all that...

It's hard not to wonder how -- in the happy circumstance of its having been possible to retain and conserve track on the "village incline" and in the streets of Abergynolwyn -- things might be working out between the latter in-village trackage, and modern motor traffic. Elaborate arrangements necessary, one feels, to enable man-powered wagon workings on special "demonstration" days.

 

[30907]

From the bottom of the Abergynolwyn incline there were actually branches which allowed coal to be delivered direct to some of the cottages in the village.

I wonder when they were last used? Before WW1?

 

[ChiefPlanner]

I wonder when they were last used? Before WW1?

If you dig deep enough into the well documented history of this superb little railway , I gather it was (sparingly) used well into WW2. With very little availability of petrol / diesel , and with the railway providing a very basic service to the local community , it made sense to do so. Bomb damage in the major cities even made a market for previously unsellable slates , moved by TR and the GWR.

Vast amounts of what would have been "road" traffic went to rail in this period, such that even Welsh branch lines in the Valleys suddenly found their goods (coal) workings carrying the odd van of "consumables" , something that had often dissapeared in the 1930's. Course , after WW2 , it rapidly went back to road.

To go back to the heroic early days of the TR - the rail conditions were very challenging , so pinching unworn rails off the incline to bolster the "main line" was of course the right thing to do. It kept the line going. To good effect. In a future time , it could , of course go back in - subject to funding etc.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Just checked the "Pioneers" book - J I C Boyd recalls a 1943 journey when the train left Towyn with 2 wagons on the back - one of coal and one of bagged flour. In 1946 - he observed 3 wagons of bricks despatched down the incline. No doubt there were parcels etc in the brakevan.

I really do commend this book.

 

[30907]

Just checked the "Pioneers" book - J I C Boyd recalls a 1943 journey when the train left Towyn with 2 wagons on the back - one of coal and one of bagged flour. In 1946 - he observed 3 wagons of bricks despatched down the incline. No doubt there were parcels etc in the brakevan.

I really do commend this book.

Fascinating, will look out for it.

 

[Cowley]

Fascinating, will look out for it.

Me too!
Very interesting thread.

 

[Greg Wetzel]

Who is the author of "Talyllyn Pioneers"? I'd like to buy a copy so I can learn more about the goods traffic.

I might as well ask here instead of making a new thread completely. What kind of signaling system does the Talyllyn Railway use? For instance, do they use single line working?

 

[Midland Man]

Who is the author of "Talyllyn Pioneers"? I'd like to buy a copy so I can learn more about the goods traffic.

I might as well ask here instead of making a new thread completely. What kind of signaling system does the Talyllyn Railway use? For instance, do they use single line working?

The Talyllyn Railway is today signalled using the Electric Key Token system with blockposts (signalboxes) at Tywyn Wharf (in the station building), Pendre, Brynglas, Quarry Siding, Abergynolwyn, and Nant Gwernol (in the station building). Until recently train movements between Abergynolwyn and Nant Gwernol were signalled using a divisible train staff (aka on TR as 'staff and ticket') but conversion to EKT working has provided for greater flexibility and simplicity with one set of train signalling regulations.
Colour light signals are provided at Abergynolwyn for most movements, and (down direction) at Wharf, and two disc signals are also provided at Wharf for down movements. Otherwise flag signals are generally deployed, even through the relatively complex Pendre layout.
Blockmen (signalmen) are rostered when needed or as available, and must be provided when passenger trains cross at a location. Otherwise if there is no blockman on duty train crew operation is possible.
Visitors to the block posts are welcome (please ask) as are prospective volunteers!
David
TR Signalling Inspector

 

[Taunton]

A good guide to the sort of freight carried is in George Behrend's "Gone With Regret" about an immediate postwar trip he made on the nearby Corris, where passengers had been given up and the slate quarries no longer used the line, but he rode a small freight with beer barrels for the pub (which the crew, plus Behrend himself, unloaded all the way into the cellar) and a large cabin trunk for someone returning from overseas. If there had been coal for the village merchant doubtless that would have been in the load as well.

 

[30907]

Who is the author of "Talyllyn Pioneers"? I'd like to buy a copy so I can learn more about the goods traffic.

I might as well ask here instead of making a new thread completely. What kind of signaling system does the Talyllyn Railway use? For instance, do they use single line working?

They certainly used train staff in early preservation days, then IIRC some form of token working but with no worked signals.

 

[Shimbleshanks]

I think there is a staged photo from the 1930s (or maybe a bit later) with things like a harp and various other Welsh cliches being unloaded from a van - all for the benefit of the camera, of course.

 

[Jona26]

Co-incidentally on 19th December there was a feature about the current Royal Mail/Post Brenhinol Abergynolwyn postie on BBC Wales news.

I didn't see it but my mum who lives in the village said it was along the day in the life of a postie in remoter rural locations.

Would have been interesting if there had been a 'then and now' comparison of deliveries to the village via fhe railway.

Apparently she is quite a character - especially liked by the village dogs as she frequently hands out biscuits to them. My mum's dog actually sits looking out of the window at delivery time hoping for a special delivery for him!

 

[Calthrop]

Add,
I'm not sure any goods were carried after Rolt took over, although I think they might send some stuff up to the cafe by train.

Read "Talyllyn Pioneers" - excellent book , describes how the TR met almost all of the needs of the community from beer to potatoes etc , even carrying away night soil ! - even in very early preservation days there was a limited parcels service.

Rolt makes mention in his Railway Adventure, of a small amount of "genuine-A-to-B" use of the Talyllyn in the first two years of the preservation era, when he was closely associated with the line --the period covered by the book. This was local people travelling by the trains to go about their occasions (chiefly folk living along the lower reaches of the line, where the railway runs at some distance from the parallel road, and chiefly on Fridays, the favoured shopping day); and a certain amount of inanimate "stuff" for the use of these locals, said "stuff" always conveyed in the brake van (where the local passengers also tended to congregate at busy times). Rolt mentions as items thus carried: sacks of coal, pig meal and chicken ditto, a particular farm's meat ration conveyed weekly from Towyn, a bedstead, and a hay rake.

In the book, these references are chiefly in the context of Rolt's contrasting unfavourably the holiday-makers who made up nearly all the train's payload; with the "salt-of-the-earth" locals, whose company he found preferable. I personally find his way of expressing this in the book, a bit uncharitably "sniffy" toward the holiday-makers without whose fares the railway could not have continued to survive -- he muses, "the average Englishman of to-day does not appear at his best when he is on holiday". His sentiments are perhaps understandable; but I feel that he might, "for public consumption", have referred with better grace to those who, in exchange for their quaint "fun" journey, stumped up the money to keep his undertaking precariously afloat.

 

[Llanigraham]

I would agree about Rolt's attitude towards those that were actually paying for him to restore the line isn't the most "friendly". And although they may have carried odds and ends in the brake van I don't think any of it was official and probably not paid for!

 

[Taunton]

You have to have some sympathy for Rolt, who for two summer seasons had to fend off almost single-handedly a hundred or more different tourists each day, with all the issues they brought with them. I bet of all the impoliteness etc he had to bear and manage, none of it came from the local regulars.

 

[Calthrop]

You have to have some sympathy for Rolt, who for two summer seasons had to fend off almost single-handedly a hundred or more different tourists each day, with all the issues they brought with them. I bet of all the impoliteness etc he had to bear and manage, none of it came from the local regulars.

It comes across clearly in Railway Adventure that Rolt's general social views tended toward not holding the proletariat in high regard; and that he was not happy with the way he perceived things as going under Britain's 1945 - 1951 Labour government, either re their principles or in practice. And -- "general" to "particular" -- his annoyance at the exasperating stuff which came his way from some holidaying passengers, is for sure understandable. For all that: though I love the book, and find Rolt mostly a sympathetic character -- some of his expressed attitude re his "punters" sits a bit uneasily with me, and has me feeling that charity was perhaps in shortish supply in his personal make-up. I'd imagine that as well as the numerous folk prompted by reading Railway Adventure after its 1953 publication, to visit and travel on the Talyllyn; there were a few readers who reacted to the author's attitudes as above, along the lines of "I'll be damned if -- should I visit Mid-Wales on holiday -- I'll go anywhere near this fellow's railway or fork out any money to him for riding on it".

 

[341o2]

You have to have some sympathy for Rolt, who for two summer seasons had to fend off almost single-handedly a hundred or more different tourists each day, with all the issues they brought with them. I bet of all the impoliteness etc he had to bear and manage, none of it came from the local regulars.

Indeed, there was a problem with insufficient rolling stock at busy times, incidents of trying to get priority by placing a family member on board before buying tickets, having to endure the same jokes about Welsh pronunciation and water going off the boil etc, then at the end of the day having to deal with individuals who expected the train to wait for them, turning up at Warf after a walk back, expecting a refund.
Rolt wasn't the only one, I live on a site part camping and there is a sign in reception "Every visitor here brings pleasure, some when they arrive....some when they leave."

 

[341o2]

I think there is a staged photo from the 1930s (or maybe a bit later) with things like a harp and various other Welsh cliches being unloaded from a van - all for the benefit of the camera, of course.

Has anyone a copy of Davies' book on the original TR (Wild Swan) as this photo appears within. From memory, I believe later, a BBC publicity film(?), much staged like the cow on the line sequence in the same film

 

[Calthrop]

I'm always tickled by the bit in Railway Adventure telling of the ardent railway enthusiast who, while buying his ticket, insists on trying to show Rolt pictures recently taken by him of an imaginary transport gem called the ****lington Tramway. Am sure that Rolt, who had in his time been an apprentice in an engineering works, was no innocent as regards profane language... Possibly the particular four-letter word involved above, is relatively new on the bad-language scene -- was not yet around in the early 1950s?

 

[randyrippley]

I'm always tickled by the bit in Railway Adventure telling of the ardent railway enthusiast who, while buying his ticket, insists on trying to show Rolt pictures recently taken by him of an imaginary transport gem called the ****lington Tramway. Am sure that Rolt, who had in his time been an apprentice in an engineering works, was no innocent as regards profane language... Possibly the particular four-letter word involved above, is relatively new on the bad-language scene -- was not yet around in the early 1950s?

Sounds like Rolt may have been bending the truth there...........what's the betting the guy was actually talking of a trip via Watlington-Wisbech-Upwell???

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Has anyone a copy of Davies' book on the original TR (Wild Swan) as this photo appears within. From memory, I believe later, a BBC publicity film(?), much staged like the cow on the line sequence in the same film

With the exception of the superb 1949 film "A Run for your Money" (an Ealing Comedy of the highest order) , where the reformed "drunkard" played by Huw Griffith plays his beloved harp on the both the Piccadilly Line , the Southern Electric to Twickenham and very movingly in the brake compartment (a composite vehicle) on the Paddington to South Wales late evening , it it fair to say that the rail carriage of harps on any kind of service to and from Wales must have been incredibly rare.

But then , as a Welsh person living in England since 1980 , I have no issue with stereotypes made in good fun.

I do commend this film though - one of my all , all time favourites.

 

[Greg Wetzel]

What is the signaling system on the Talyllyn Railway?

 

[4069]

Has anyone a copy of Davies' book on the original TR (Wild Swan) as this photo appears within. From memory, I believe later, a BBC publicity film(?), much staged like the cow on the line sequence in the same film

In Boyd's book on the TR (Wild Swan 1988) the picture of the harp being loaded into the brake van appears on page 93, and is recorded as being taken (staged) for an article in 'Picture Post' magazine in 1949.

 

[Llanigraham]

What is the signaling system on the Talyllyn Railway?

From the Wiki entry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talyllyn_Railway

The railway is single track, so special measures have to be taken to prevent collisions. Before preservation, the railway operated a "one engine in steam" policy, but with growing passenger numbers it became necessary to install passing loops and a more stringent method of single line control was introduced.[93] The line is worked by Electric Key tokens, which authorise the driver to enter a section of single line, and these are interlocked to prevent more than one token being withdrawn for a section at any one time. There is a loop at Pendre, which was used from the opening of the railway for shunting purposes, and further loops were installed at Brynglas in 1953 and Quarry Siding in 1963.[94] When the Nant Gwernol extension opened in 1976, Abergynolwyn also became a passing loop.[95]

Each passing loop is controlled by a small signal box, known as a block-post. These house the lever frames that control the points, the token equipment and telephones. The railway has few signals; instead it has stop boards at Pendre, Brynglas, Quarry Siding and Nant Gwernol, and the blockman allows trains to proceed by use of flags.[96] There are colour light signals located at Tywyn Wharf, operated from the Control Office and disc signals controlled from the ground frame. Abergynolwyn has colour light signals, which are operated from the blockpost.[97] When the block-post is unmanned, it is the responsibility of the locomotive crew to change the token before proceeding.[98]

 

[30907]

What is the signaling system on the Talyllyn Railway?

To add to my earlier reply, their website refers to Blockmen which confirms that they operate a form of (token?) block. ISTR that introducing a train staff was an HMRI recommendation back in 1951. Time I visited....