The Talyllyn in Old Newspapers

Contemporary newspaper reports are a valuable source for historians, but until recently research has been time-consuming and expensive, with the need to travel to often distant libraries and work manually through vast bound volumes. Advances in scanning technology have allowed both the British Library and the National Library of Wales to make online searches possible for an increasing catalogue of old newspapers. Thus it is possible to present a selection of useful facts and contemporary opinions of our beloved railway from the McConnel era, some of which have not seen the light of day for more a century.

The common perception of the old TR is heavily based on the images created by Railway With A Heart Of Gold and similar sources – a quaint little curiosity. Whilst the railway was obviously never in the same league as the FR, the quarry was nonetheless the biggest employer in the valley for a good fifty years, an important fact given that lack of employment in the Towyn area is commented upon time and again in the local press. There are also reports on such matters as The Great Towyn Mormon Scandal which, though fascinating, must keep for another time.

Tom Rolt often commented on the TR’s guardian angel and the railway had some near misses, the first as early as 1873. The Cambrian News reports:

THE LITTLE RAILWAY.—The object of our day’s outing, which, by the way, took place on Thursday, July the 10th, was not so much to visit Talyllyn as to have a ride on the little railway, on which we read in the Guide Book there were never any accidents. The gauge of the railway is 2 feet 9 inches (sic), and the first time a stranger sees the miniature engine and the miniature carriages he smiles involuntarily. Juveniles as a rule laugh outright, and show a strong disposition to get astride on the engine. The train with which we were to return from Abergynolwyn was advertised to leave at 4.30 but there was no sign of its coming up from Towyn at 5.30 . . . As six o’clock approached, a few set out to walk, ourselves amongst the number. After following the line about two miles we fell in with three navvies who were just leaving off work, and as they had a trolly at their command they informed us "if we would wait for the wagon we should all take a ride." We waited and took our seats, and went down the line at a jolly pace, no occupants of an Irish jaunting car ever feeling more delighted with their ride. On the way we passed several who had outwalked us, a few of whom looked imploringly for a ride, but we shouted that we were "full inside." By and by we discerned some slate trucks coming down the incline behind us, the manager of the quarry, Mr Williams, hearing that something was wrong, having sent them to pick up stray passengers along the line. We were transferred from the trolly to a truck, where we found Mr Williams in charge of the break, of which he appeared to have perfect command. We were now about two miles from Towyn, and before proceeding far we met with A CATASTROPHE.

The first truck was filled with young ladies who had been out for a day’s pic-nic. They were delighted with so romantic a finish to their day’s pleasure as to be riding through a beautiful valley at the rate of twenty miles an hour without the aid of steam. In a moment there was a transition from the gay to the grave. There is a loud scream: "Here’s an engine coming to meet us," and the next moment there were about five and twenty persons sprawling at the side of the line, all having jumped out to avoid being mangled to death. Fortunately Mr Williams stuck to his break, and the driver of the engine to his handle, both being brought to a dead stand when they were about fifteen yards of meeting. The feeling of gratitude which pervaded every breath when they saw the narrowness of their escape we will not attempt to describe.

The worst of the injuries did not exceed a few scratches and bruises; still some mothers present could hardly persuade themselves for a few moments that they were gazing upon their children alive. From explanations which followed, it appeared that the engine in the afternoon had got off the line, and it took about three hours to get her right again. As soon as matters were righted the engine and two carriages were despatched to pick up waiting passengers; hence the cause of the catastrophe.

Evidently a bit of a cock-up on the ‘one engine in steam’ front. Note the delightful narration in true Boy’s Own Paper style and complete absence of any inclination either to complain or to sue anybody. Eat your heart out, Health and Safety. It has to be said that the headline: THE LITTLE RAILWAY to describe twenty-five people jumping out of wagons ‘to avoid being mangled to death’ is right up there with The Times’s legendary ‘Small Earthquake, Not Many Dead’.

Perhaps more serious, especially if you happened to be one Meyrick Roberts, quarry manager, was the wholesale derailment of a run of loaded slate wagons near Nant Gwernol:

Towyn-on-Sea and Meirioneth County Times 13th March 1902

RAILWAY ACCIDENT.—An accident occurred on the Talyllyn Railway on Monday, without happily any personal injuries, although there were several narrow escapes. It appears that the locomotive had run on as usual, after bringing up the morning train, past the Abergynolwyn station to the bottom of the first incline; where it hitched on a load of trucks filled with slates from the quarry above. When above Hendre, a very dangerous portion of the line, which is here more or less on the side of a fairly high precipice, a truck jumped the metals, and the whole set toppled over. Luckily, the coupling between the engine and the first truck snapped, so that the engine remained on the rails, although the engineer and stoker were prepared for the worst. Mr Meyrick Roberts, who was riding on the trucks, had a very narrow escape, but fortunately managed to jump clear. The slates were scattered all over the place and the financial loss is rather heavy. No reason has, as yet, been assigned for the occurrence, which created a good deal of excitement in Abergynolwyn.

Another common perception is that Talyllyn and Dolgoch were not worked anywhere near as hard in the old days as in preservation. This is true for ordinary services, the major loads being slate going downhill. But on occasion much heavier trains were run, notably for the Towyn Hiring Fair on Easter Monday, when agricultural workers and domestic servants were taken on for the year. The quarry shut down and the entire population of Abergynolwyn descended on Towyn for the day:

Cambrian News 15th April 1887

EASTER MONDAY FAIR.—The weather was dry and bright and an unusually large number of people attended. This being observed as a holiday at the Bryneglwys Quarries, hundreds of people came to the town from Aberganolwyn. There were special trains running on the Talyllyn Railway, attached to one of which were seventeen slate-wagons loaded with people for the fair.

Cambrian News 10th April 1896

EASTER MONDAY FAIR.—This fair is the great annual festival of the young and the gay. Indeed it is the only day on which the people make any attempt at general amusement . . . The Talyllyn railway trains brought down crowds of people who were packed in carriages, trucks, and vans . . .

The Talyllyn seems to have enjoyed generally pleasant relations with both the press and the local community, certainly when compared with this vitriolic attack on the Corris, which undoubtedly received a lot of stick from unimpressed passengers over the years:

Cambrian News 21st July 1905

CORRIS RAILWAY. Sir, I have recently travelled by the same route as the unfortunate lady who was taken ill last week on alighting from the Corris train, and soon after expired. Surely this is a case for further inquiry. It is well that travelling by this toy railway means a torture of only seven miles, otherwise a long journey under such conditions might prove fatal to all the passengers. The coaches are miniature tramcars with glass all round. When entering one feels like entering an oven with foul air, excessive heat and noise enough to shatter the nerves of the strongest man . . .

Meanwhile some things do perhaps not change very much:

Cambrian News 16th March 1877

In gossiping of Towyn rambles I must first at once give due meed (sic) of praise to the facility afforded in the direction of Aberganolwyn, and the renowned-for-beauty lake, Talyllyn, by the pretty little "miniature" railway from near the town to the slate quarries. The gauge is slightly more than that of the Festiniog line, the carriages are certainly larger and more comfortable, but still it is a little toy like railway . . . I have had many trips on the little line, going on and returning from rambles over adjacent hills, and always found them delightful, and the railway "officials and staff" so courteous and polite, in which respect they are, so far as my experience goes, far beyond the gold laced, consequential, servants of the Festiniog Company. But we must remember the traffic on the Festiniog line is immense, and the profits large, while our little Towyn friend has humbler fortune.

The obvious conclusion is that our own correspondent had travelled in a bug box as the FR by 1877 already had bogie carriages but essentially similar comments on the contrasting characters of the two railways were still being made as late as the 1980s! By 1899 however, local passengers had become distinctly less impressed with the increasingly antique Brown Marshalls. Even the Corris is praised in this critique. What the columnist might have said, had he realised that the TRs would still be in service 116 years later probably doesn’t bear thinking about:

Towyn-on-Sea and Meirioneth County Times 3rd August 1899

TALYLLYN RAILWAY. There is no gainsaying the fact that a railway ride from Towyn to Abergynolwyn might, under the circumstances, be looked forward to with avidity, but under the existing condition of things a ride is far from pleasant because of the stuffy nature of the carriages on the Tov Railway. The scenery is enchanting and Abergynolwyn and district, with Talvllyn about three miles off are exceedingly attractive to pleasure seekers, but the railway ride spoils everything. Could not the Talyllyn Railway Company see their way to do away with the existing carriages and provide carriages something similar to the Corris Railway Company. The business of the latter company has in recent years increased by leaps and bounds, and I attribute it, more than to anything else, to the greatly improved and even fascinating carriages that are run from Machynlleth to Corris. Have not the carriages on the Talyllyn Railwav served their day? My own impression is that they have, and that a good change would greatly increase the traffic, and thus in time pay well for the introduction. The inhabitants of Abergynolwyn are quietly hoping—it is said that some have already prayed—for a change for the better, as well as for a far more suitable railway service. The train on Saturday evenings leaves Towvn at a ridiculously early hour. In the meantime cannot a change in this direction be effected?

The vast majority of criticism of the Talyllyn seems to have come from Abergynolwyn, perhaps inevitably as the village was far more dependent than Towyn on TR service or the lack of it. The absence of a late Saturday train back to Aber was a perennial gripe, though it is entirely possible that the railway had no desire to trouble itself with late night drunks. Abergynolwyn traders however were on occasion equally dissatisfied:

Cambrian News 2nd August 1889

ABERGANOLWYN SHOPKEEPERS AND TALY-LLYN RAILWAY COMPANY. . . . But what I desire to call attention to at present is the dispute which exists between the shopkeepers and inhabitants of Aberganolwyn on the one hand and the Quarry Company on the other concerning the charges claimed for the carriage of goods over the Talyllyn railway. Indeed the charges of the company are so unreasonably high as to command sympathy with the shopkeepers and inhabitants from every considerate man. I do not know anv other railway company which charges half that claimed by the Talyllyn Company for the carriage of goods and, in fact, were not the majority of the shopkeepers and inhabitants tenants or employees of the Company, they would have made a determined opposition to the charges years ago, since it would have been much cheaper to have their goods carried along the road in carts drawn by horses . . .

Unfortunately papers rarely seem to have followed up running stories in those days, so the Aber traders row is one of many incidents where the subsequent outcome remains a mystery. Another common complaint, in this case from Towyn Urban District Council, was the TR’s alleged failure to make its trains connect with those of the Cambrian:

Cambrian News 19th April 1901

. . . Mr J. M. Howell: Is it not a fact that they do their worst to run their trains in connection with the Cambrian Railways ? —Mr Maethlon James: That is another question altogether. —Mr J.M. Howell: They imply in that letter that they confer great benefits on the district. My impression is that it is just the opposite. —Mr Maethlon James believed their trains were timed so that they could be caught by the Cambrian trains if the latter were not late. —Mr Henry Evans: But they will never wait. —Mr Howell: Yes, I am told that you can never rely upon having a train! . . .

This seems genuinely unfair on the Talyllyn. Timekeeping on the Cambrian, especially during the holiday season, was frequently abysmal. Tom Rolt was still having problems with it as TR general manager in 1952.

It has long been known that the TR ran early trains for the quarrymen; however this short report confirms when they were introduced:

Cambrian News 7 April 1876

TALYLLYN RAILWAY.—The authorities of this line commenced running a workmen’s early train on Monday morning, which will, no doubt, prove a great advantage to those living at Towyn, Aberdovey, and Bryncrug, as it will enable them to resume work at the same time as people living adjacent to the quarries.

We also know that mains water reached the loco shed in 1895, thanks to the Great Pendre Water Row:

Cambrian News 15 February 1901

The Surveyor reported on the amount of water used by the Talyllyn Railway Company for their locomotives and the time this had been going on without the Council’s knowledge It was resolved that the Company be written to informing them of the infringement of the bylaws relating to the water supply, in using water for other than for domestic purposes or the purposes agreed to; that they would be charged £5 per annum for the water used and to be used, and calling on them to conform with the Council’s decision, and in the event of them not complying the water pipe would be disconnected forthwith.

Over a period of months it became clear that when Railway View, the former cottage at Pendre, was connected to the mains in 1895, someone had the bright idea of branching the supply into the loco shed water tank. It was six years before the council discovered the TR was effectively having all its loco water free while only paying domestic water rates on the cottage. Whether the shed staff pulled a fast one has never been established, as the council accepted TR general manager R.B.Yates’s explanation of an administrative error plus an offer to pay for the water.

The railway appears to have received its maximum press coverage during Yates’s tenure from 1899 until the end of the McConnel era. He was evidently both more approachable and keen to promote the TR than either his more retiring predecessors or the forbidding Haydn Jones. He did not quite rival the Corris Railway manager J.R.Dix who contrived to be the life and soul of Corris social affairs for many years but this report reflects his general enthusiasm for the local community:

Cambrian News 26th July 1901

TEA PARTY. Mr R. B. Yates, Sandilands, managing director of the Abergynolwyn Slate Company and the Talyllyn Railway Company, entertained all the children of Abergynolwyn and neighbourhood to tea, followed by sports, on Friday, July 19th. There was a very large attendance of children who thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Mr Yates seems to take the liveliest interest in everything that pertains to welfare and happiness of those connected with the Quarries. His kindness is very much appreciated.

It is to be hoped that further TR discoveries will be made as further publications are steadily added to Welsh Newspapers Online www.welshnewspapers.llgc.org.uk Some key issues, notably from the mid 1860s, are not yet available. Several TR researchers have asked if these papers might be given priority in the scanning process, especially given the strong level of interest generated by TR 150, but staff at the National Library of Wales seem to prefer to stick to their existing programme. Despite this, the project has already yielded some extremely valuable results and its further development should be strongly encouraged.

Eddie Castellan