Glyn Valley Tramway
Encyclopedia
The Glyn Valley Tramway was a narrow gauge railway that connected Chirk
with Glyn Ceiriog
in Denbighshire
(now Wrexham
County Borough), Wales
. The gauge of the line was . The total length of the line was 8+1/4 mi, 6+1/2 mi of which were worked by passenger trains, the remainder serving a large granite quarry and several minor slate quarries.
at Chirk. A standard gauge "Ellesmere & Glyn Valley Railway" was authorised by an Act 6 Aug 1866 to run from Cambrian Railway at Ellesmere to the GWR at Chirk and thence to follow the Glyn Ceiriog road to the quarries. No construction took place and by Act of 1869, the Ellesmere to Chirk portion was abandoned. The company was reincorporated by an Act of Parliament in 1870 as the Glyn Valley Tramway, which allowed the company to build a narrow gauge tramway from the canal at Chirk Bank to the Cambrian Slate Quarries. This initial line, 6½ miles (10.5 km) was opened in 1873, and was worked by horse and gravity traction. Both passenger and freight traffic was carried from that year.
's Chirk Station. A two mile extension was also authorized from Glyn to the quarries around Pandy.
Rebuilding of the line was undertaken with steam locomotive
s borrowed from the Snailbeach District Railways
. The new line was opened for freight traffic in 1888 and to passengers in 1891. The new line was operated by steam locomotives purchased from Beyer Peacock in Manchester.
locomotive was purchased. This locomotive was regauged by Beyer Peacock from its original gauge.
After the First World War costs started to rise significantly, while revenues did not. The railway's financial situation declined steadily during the 1920s. The railway needed to carry approximately 45,000 tons of traffic per year to break even. In 1929 it carried 64,857 tons, but by 1932 this had dropped to 21,400 tons. Increased use of road haulage and a change in the ownership of the remaining quarries was the cause of this downturn in traffic.
In 1932 a bus service was started in the valley, for the first time offering passengers a serious competition to travelling on the tramway. Passenger receipts declined steeply that year, and passenger services were abandoned at the beginning of 1933. Freight traffic continued to decline and the losses to mount on the railway and all services ceased in July 1935 as the company went into voluntary liquidation. The locomotives were all scrapped in 1936.
Most of the railway's stock and track were scrapped in the 1930s. However, some carriage bodies were sold to local farmers. Two of these bodies survived long enough to be rescued by the Talyllyn Railway
where they have been restored to working order and are now used in regular traffic. A quantity of Glyn Valley track also found its way to the Talyllyn.
The waiting rooms in Pontfadog and Dolywern survive to this day in their original locations. In 1950 the council officer used Pontfadog waiting room to collect rates and the locals nicknamed it ‘Pontfadog Town Hall’. It was later bought by the public house and it was also used as a quaint little craft shop.
Part of the historic tramway – dubbed the 'Little bit of Heaven Railway' is set to be revived by the Glyn Valley Tramway Trust (formed as a charity in October 2007) who plan to recreate its appearance in the 1920s era and provide a visitor centre and workshops with educational facilities to display and interpret the history and development of the Tramway through artefacts and audio visual media. The Glyn Valley Tramway Trust are to carry out a Design and Evaluation study of the entire route from Chirk to Glyn Ceiriog and beyond, and as a first phase intend re-instating a 1 km section as an operational steam heritage railway from the original Chirk GVT station next to the Shrewsbury to Chester main line to Baddy's Wood near Pontfaen by 2010.
The opening of the A483/A5 Chirk Bypass hit the economy of the Ceiriog Valley with tourists either leaving the bypass for the A5 and Llangollen, or heading further north to join the A55 dual carriageway with its access to the tourist attractions of North Wales. The revival of the Glyn Valley Tramway would help to redress the balance.
The Glyn Valley Tramway Group have plans to open a Tramway Heritage Centre in Glyn Ceiriog.
The Glyn Valley Tramway Trust received a Grant in August 2008 from the Welsh Assembly Government and Wrexham County Borough Council to undertake a detailed evaluation of options for the re-instatement, conservation and interpretation of the line. More information is available at the Trust's website:
There is strong local and political support for a revival of part of the Tramway to assist with the economic regeneration of the area whose economy is dependent on two large local employers. The Trust recognises that to make a viable attraction from day one, it will have to make use of available resources, which is likely to result in the use of non-authentic, but sympathetic locomotives and rolling stock initially. The income from such an operation will allow the more specialised conservation and historical activities to be supported. At a later stage of development the Trust is keen to pursue the construction of replicas of the original Beyer Peacock tramway locomotives.
The Trust has awarded the contract to Thirty Inch Railways Ltd in September 2008
The Trust and their consultants will undertake a thorough consultation and evaluation process over the next six months resulting in a public display of the results and detailed designs in Spring 2009. The Trust seeks to engage with all parties, especially special interest organisations, to help prepare a definitive plan for the future of all aspects of the Tramway. It is likely that the outcomes of this work will be incorporated into the local authority's development framework and tourism strategy.
Chirk
Chirk is a small town and local government community, the lowest tier of local government, part of Wrexham County Borough in Wales. It has a population of over 4,000....
with Glyn Ceiriog
Glyn Ceiriog
Llansantffraid Glyn Ceiriog is a local government community, the lowest tier of local government, part of Wrexham County Borough in Wales.Glyn Ceiriog is a former slate mining village in Wrexham County Borough, in Wales...
in Denbighshire
Denbighshire
Denbighshire is a county in north-east Wales. It is named after the historic county of Denbighshire, but has substantially different borders. Denbighshire has the distinction of being the oldest inhabited part of Wales. Pontnewydd Palaeolithic site has remains of Neanderthals from 225,000 years...
(now Wrexham
Wrexham (county borough)
Wrexham is a county borough centred on the town of Wrexham in north-east Wales. The county borough has a population of 130,200 inhabitants. Just under half of the population live either within the town of Wrexham or its surrounding conurbation of urban villages. The remainder living to the south...
County Borough), 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...
. The gauge of the line was . The total length of the line was 8+1/4 mi, 6+1/2 mi of which were worked by passenger trains, the remainder serving a large granite quarry and several minor slate quarries.
Quarries served
| Name | Product | Start year | End year | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hendre quarry | Granite Granite Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic... |
1935 | Internal railway system worked by a Lilleshall Company Lilleshall Company The Lilleshall Company was a large engineering company in Oakengates Shropshire founded in 1802. Its operations included mechanical engineering, coal mining iron and steel making and brickworks. The company was noted for its winding, pumping and blast engines and operated a private railway network... 0-4-0T locomotive |
|
| Upper Pandy quarry | Granite Granite Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic... |
1900 | 1908 | |
| Cae-Deicws quarry | Chinastone | 1885 | 1905 | |
| Lower Pandy quarry | Chinastone | 1885 | 1905 | |
| Pen-y-Graig quarry | Silica | 1911 | 1920 | |
| Coed-y-Glyn mine | Granite Granite Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic... |
|||
| Cambrian quarry | Slate Slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. The result is a foliated rock in which the foliation may not correspond to the original sedimentary layering... |
1873 | Internal quarry railway was laid to gauge and used a W.G. Bagnall W.G. Bagnall W. G. Bagnall was a locomotive manufacturer from Stafford, England. It was founded in 1875 by William Gordon Bagnall and ceased trading in 1962 when it was taken over by English Electric Co Ltd. The company was located at the Castle Engine Works, in Castle Town, Stafford... 0-4-0ST |
|
| Wynne quarry | Slate Slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. The result is a foliated rock in which the foliation may not correspond to the original sedimentary layering... |
1884 | ||
| Quinta colliery | Coal Coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure... |
The original route
The railway was built to connect the quarries at Glyn Ceriog with the Shropshire Union CanalShropshire Union Canal
The Shropshire Union Canal is a navigable canal in England; the Llangollen and Montgomery canals are the modern names of branches of the Shropshire Union system and lie partially in Wales....
at Chirk. A standard gauge "Ellesmere & Glyn Valley Railway" was authorised by an Act 6 Aug 1866 to run from Cambrian Railway at Ellesmere to the GWR at Chirk and thence to follow the Glyn Ceiriog road to the quarries. No construction took place and by Act of 1869, the Ellesmere to Chirk portion was abandoned. The company was reincorporated by an Act of Parliament in 1870 as the Glyn Valley Tramway, which allowed the company to build a narrow gauge tramway from the canal at Chirk Bank to the Cambrian Slate Quarries. This initial line, 6½ miles (10.5 km) was opened in 1873, and was worked by horse and gravity traction. Both passenger and freight traffic was carried from that year.
Rebuilding and extension
In 1885 additional parliamentary powers were obtained to abandon the Quinta Tramway section between Pontfaen and Chirk Bank, replacing it with a new line from Pontfaen to the Great Western RailwayGreat Western Railway
The Great Western Railway was a British railway company that linked London with the south-west and west of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament in 1835 and ran its first trains in 1838...
's Chirk Station. A two mile extension was also authorized from Glyn to the quarries around Pandy.
Rebuilding of the line was undertaken with steam locomotive
Steam locomotive
A steam locomotive is a railway locomotive that produces its power through a steam engine. These locomotives are fueled by burning some combustible material, usually coal, wood or oil, to produce steam in a boiler, which drives the steam engine...
s borrowed from the Snailbeach District Railways
Snailbeach District Railways
Snailbeach District Railways was a British narrow gauge railway in Shropshire. It was built to carry lead ore from mines in the Stiperstones to Pontesbury where the ore was transshipped to the Great Western Railway's Minsterley branch line. Coal from the Pontesford coal mines travelled in the...
. The new line was opened for freight traffic in 1888 and to passengers in 1891. The new line was operated by steam locomotives purchased from Beyer Peacock in Manchester.
Operation and closure
The two original locomotives, Sir Theodore and Dennis were joined by a third, Glyn in 1892. These tram locomotives worked the line until 1921 when an ex-War Department Light RailwaysWar Department Light Railways
The War Department Light Railways were a system of narrow gauge trench railways run by the British War Department in World War I. Light railways made an important contribution to the Allied war effort in the First World War, and were used for the supply of ammunition and stores, the transport of...
locomotive was purchased. This locomotive was regauged by Beyer Peacock from its original gauge.
After the First World War costs started to rise significantly, while revenues did not. The railway's financial situation declined steadily during the 1920s. The railway needed to carry approximately 45,000 tons of traffic per year to break even. In 1929 it carried 64,857 tons, but by 1932 this had dropped to 21,400 tons. Increased use of road haulage and a change in the ownership of the remaining quarries was the cause of this downturn in traffic.
In 1932 a bus service was started in the valley, for the first time offering passengers a serious competition to travelling on the tramway. Passenger receipts declined steeply that year, and passenger services were abandoned at the beginning of 1933. Freight traffic continued to decline and the losses to mount on the railway and all services ceased in July 1935 as the company went into voluntary liquidation. The locomotives were all scrapped in 1936.
Preservation
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...
where they have been restored to working order and are now used in regular traffic. A quantity of Glyn Valley track also found its way to the Talyllyn.
The waiting rooms in Pontfadog and Dolywern survive to this day in their original locations. In 1950 the council officer used Pontfadog waiting room to collect rates and the locals nicknamed it ‘Pontfadog Town Hall’. It was later bought by the public house and it was also used as a quaint little craft shop.
Part of the historic tramway – dubbed the 'Little bit of Heaven Railway' is set to be revived by the Glyn Valley Tramway Trust (formed as a charity in October 2007) who plan to recreate its appearance in the 1920s era and provide a visitor centre and workshops with educational facilities to display and interpret the history and development of the Tramway through artefacts and audio visual media. The Glyn Valley Tramway Trust are to carry out a Design and Evaluation study of the entire route from Chirk to Glyn Ceiriog and beyond, and as a first phase intend re-instating a 1 km section as an operational steam heritage railway from the original Chirk GVT station next to the Shrewsbury to Chester main line to Baddy's Wood near Pontfaen by 2010.
The opening of the A483/A5 Chirk Bypass hit the economy of the Ceiriog Valley with tourists either leaving the bypass for the A5 and Llangollen, or heading further north to join the A55 dual carriageway with its access to the tourist attractions of North Wales. The revival of the Glyn Valley Tramway would help to redress the balance.
The Glyn Valley Tramway Group have plans to open a Tramway Heritage Centre in Glyn Ceiriog.
The Glyn Valley Tramway Trust received a Grant in August 2008 from the Welsh Assembly Government and Wrexham County Borough Council to undertake a detailed evaluation of options for the re-instatement, conservation and interpretation of the line. More information is available at the Trust's website:
There is strong local and political support for a revival of part of the Tramway to assist with the economic regeneration of the area whose economy is dependent on two large local employers. The Trust recognises that to make a viable attraction from day one, it will have to make use of available resources, which is likely to result in the use of non-authentic, but sympathetic locomotives and rolling stock initially. The income from such an operation will allow the more specialised conservation and historical activities to be supported. At a later stage of development the Trust is keen to pursue the construction of replicas of the original Beyer Peacock tramway locomotives.
The Trust has awarded the contract to Thirty Inch Railways Ltd in September 2008
The Trust and their consultants will undertake a thorough consultation and evaluation process over the next six months resulting in a public display of the results and detailed designs in Spring 2009. The Trust seeks to engage with all parties, especially special interest organisations, to help prepare a definitive plan for the future of all aspects of the Tramway. It is likely that the outcomes of this work will be incorporated into the local authority's development framework and tourism strategy.
Locomotives
| Number | Name | Builder | Type | Works Number | Built | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dennis | Beyer Peacock | 0-4-2T | 2970 | 1888 | Scrapped 1936 |
| 2 | Sir Theodore | Beyer Peacock | 0-4-2T | 2969 | 1888 | Loaned to the Snailbeach District Railways Snailbeach District Railways Snailbeach District Railways was a British narrow gauge railway in Shropshire. It was built to carry lead ore from mines in the Stiperstones to Pontesbury where the ore was transshipped to the Great Western Railway's Minsterley branch line. Coal from the Pontesford coal mines travelled in the... around 1905. Scrapped 1936 |
| 3 | Glyn | Beyer Peacock | 0-4-2T | 3500 | 1892 | Scrapped 1936 |
| 4 | Baldwin Baldwin Locomotive Works The Baldwin Locomotive Works was an American builder of railroad locomotives. It was located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, originally, and later in nearby Eddystone, Pennsylvania. Although the company was very successful as a producer of steam locomotives, its transition to the production of... |
4-6-0T | 45211 | 1917 | Acquired by the GVT in 1921; mainly worked freight trains. Scrapped 1936 | |
See also
- British narrow gauge railwaysBritish narrow gauge railwaysThere were more than a thousand British narrow gauge railways ranging from large, historically significant common carriers to small, short-lived industrial railways...
- Worsley Works - models of Glyn Valley Tramway stockWorsley WorksWorsley Works, is a manufacturer of kits for model railway carriages and locomotives, owned and run from Worsley, UK, by Allen Doherty.Worsley Works is well-known in the finescale modelling world, especially in less-popular scales, including British HO scale and 3mm-scale models along with...
- Baldwin Class 10-12-DBaldwin Class 10-12-DThe Baldwin Class 10-12-D was a class of narrow gauge 4-6-0 pannier tank steam locomotives built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works for the British War Department Light Railways for service in France during World War I...