The Dinorwic Railway was an early narrow gauge industrial railway

Industrial railway

An industrial railway is a type of railway that is not available for public transportation and is used exclusively to serve a particular industrial, logistics or military site...

 connecting the slate quarry

Slate industry

The slate industry is the industry related to the extraction and processing of slate. Slate is either quarried from a slate quarry or reached by tunneling in a slate mine. Common uses for slate include as a roofing material, a flooring material, gravestones and memorial tablets, and for electrical...

 at Dinorwic

Dinorwic Quarry

The Dinorwic Slate Quarry is a large former slate quarry, now home to the Welsh National Slate Museum, located between the villages of Llanberis and Dinorwig in north Wales. It was the second largest slate quarry in Wales, indeed in the world, after the neighbouring Penrhyn Quarry....

 in Caernarvonshire with the coastal port at Y Felinheli

Y Felinheli

Y Felinheli is a village lying beside the Menai Strait between Bangor and Caernarfon in Gwynedd, north-west Wales. The population is about 2,200.-Etymology:...

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History

The Dinorwic slate quarry was purchased in 1809 by a group of investors led by Thomas Assheton-Smith and a significant expansion was started. To handle the new production levels, better transportation to the coast was required. In 1812 a trackway for horse-hauled sleds was opened leading to the port at Moel y Don. Shortly afterwards in 1812, railways were introduced within the quarry.

By 1823 plans were being made to construct a railway from the quarry to the port, and construction began in June 1824. By 1825 quarry records show slate shipments being made by rail.

Although the railway was successful, it had a number of limitations. It passed over land that was not owned by the quarry, so rent had to be paid to the landowners. It also used several inclines

Cable railway

A cable railway is a steeply graded railway that uses a cable or rope to haul trains.-Introduction:...

 along its route as it descended, and working these slowed traffic and required extra manpower. By the early 1840s it was clear that as quarry production expanded further a newer, more efficient railway was needed. In 1841 work began on the replacement Padarn Railway

Padarn Railway

The Padarn Railway was a narrow gauge railway line in Wales, built to the unusual gauge of . It was built to carry slate from the Dinorwic Quarry to Port Dinorwic. It opened in 1842, replacing the previous Dinorwic Railway. The Padarn Railway closed in 1961 .An unusual feature of the railway were...

, which opened in 1842. The Dinorwic Railway ceased operations in 1843.