The Corris Railway

Corris Railway

The Corris Railway is a narrow gauge preserved railway based in Corris on the border between Merionethshire and Montgomeryshire in Mid-Wales....

's Grand Tour was a tourist service that ran between 1886 and 1930. It involved a journey on the Corris Railway

Corris Railway

The Corris Railway is a narrow gauge preserved railway based in Corris on the border between Merionethshire and Montgomeryshire in Mid-Wales....

, a charabanc

Charabanc

A charabanc or "char-à-banc" is a type of horse-drawn vehicle or early motor coach, usually open-topped, common in Britain during the early part of the 20th century. It was especially popular for sight-seeing or "works outings" to the country or the seaside, organised by businesses once a year...

 connection to the Talyllyn Railway

Talyllyn Railway

The Talyllyn Railway is a narrow-gauge preserved railway in Wales running for from Tywyn on the Mid-Wales coast to Nant Gwernol near the village of Abergynolwyn. The line was opened in 1866 to carry slate from the quarries at Bryn Eglwys to Tywyn, and was the first narrow gauge railway in Britain...

 and a return via the Cambrian Railways

Cambrian Railways

Cambrian Railways owned of track over a large area of mid-Wales. The system was an amalgamation of a number of railways that were incorporated in 1864, 1865 and 1904...

 line between Tywyn

Tywyn

Tywyn is a town and seaside resort on the Cardigan Bay coast of southern Gwynedd , in north Wales. The name derives from the Welsh tywyn and the town is sometimes referred to as Tywyn Meirionnydd...

 and Machynlleth

Machynlleth

Machynlleth is a market town in Powys, Wales. It is in the Dyfi Valley at the intersection of the A487 and the A489 roads.Machynlleth was the seat of Owain Glyndŵr's Welsh Parliament in 1404, and as such claims to be the "ancient capital of Wales". However, it has never held any official...

.

History

In 1878 the Corris Railway, a narrow gauge

Narrow gauge

A narrow gauge railway is a railway that has a track gauge narrower than the of standard gauge railways. Most existing narrow gauge railways have gauges of between and .- Overview :...

 railway in mid Wales

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

 was taken over by Imperial Tramways

Imperial Tramways Company

The Imperial Tramways Company Ltd was created to bring under common management a number of street tramways. Originally based in London, its headquarters moved to Bristol in 1892 and from then on it shared its senior management with Bristol Tramways under the chairmanship of George...

, a London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

-based company that rapidly expanded the railway. One of the innovations of the new owners was to encourage the use of the railway by tourists. They introduced horse-drawn charabancs to ferry passengers from the station at Corris

Corris

Corris is a village in the south of Snowdonia in the Welsh county of Gwynedd. Although the Snowdonia National Park covers much of the area around Corris, the village is not within the park. The name is possibly derived from the English word "quarries", and the extensive slate quarries that surround...

 to Tal-y-llyn Lake

Tal-y-llyn Lake

Tal-y-llyn Lake, also known as Talyllyn Lake or Llyn Mwyngil, is a large glacial ribbon lake formed by a post-glacial massive landslip damming up the lake within the glaciated valley...

 and Cadair Idris

Cadair Idris

Cadair Idris or Cader Idris is a mountain in Gwynedd, Wales that lies at the southern end of the Snowdonia National Park. The peak, which is one of the most popular in Wales for walkers and hikers,  is composed largely of Ordovician igneous rocks, with classic glacial erosion features such as...

, four miles to the north.

The service was immediately popular and was soon extended in partnership with the nearby Talyllyn Railway to provide a "Grand Tour". Passengers joined the Corris Railway train at Machynlleth and travelled to Corris. From there they proceeded by charabanc to Tal-y-llyn lake, pausing for refreshments at the Pen-y-Bont Hotel, and on to Abergynolwyn

Abergynolwyn

Abergynolwyn is a village in southern Gwynedd, Wales, located at the confluence of the Nant Gwernol and the Afon Dysynni.Historically, the village was part of Merionethshire and its main industry was slate quarrying and the village was founded in the 1860s to house workers at the nearby Bryn...

, where they joined the Talyllyn train for the trip to the coast at Tywyn

Tywyn

Tywyn is a town and seaside resort on the Cardigan Bay coast of southern Gwynedd , in north Wales. The name derives from the Welsh tywyn and the town is sometimes referred to as Tywyn Meirionnydd...

. Here they met the standard gauge

Standard gauge

The standard gauge is a widely-used track gauge . Approximately 60% of the world's existing railway lines are built to this gauge...

 Cambrian Railways train which returned them to Machynlleth.

In 1892 the Imperial company moved its headquarters to Bristol, where it shared senior management with the Bristol Tramways

Bristol Tramways

Bristol tramways were operated from 1875, when the Bristol Tramways Company was formed by Sir George White, until 1941 when a Luftwaffe bomb destroyed the power station.-History:...

. In the early years of the twentieth century the Bristol company replaced the horse-drawn vehicle

Horse-drawn vehicle

A horse-drawn vehicle is a mechanized piece of equipment pulled by one horse or by a team of horses. These vehicles typically had two or four wheels and were used to carry passengers and/or a load...

s with motor charabancs.