The Penrhyn Quarry Railway first opened in 1798 as the Llandegai Tramway; it became the Penrhyn Railway in 1801 although on a different route. Constructed to transport slate

Slate industry in Wales

The slate industry in Wales began during the Roman period when slate was used to roof the fort at Segontium, now Caernarfon. The slate industry grew slowly until the early 18th century, then expanded rapidly until the late 19th century, at which time the most important slate producing areas were in...

 from Lord Penrhyn's slate quarries

Penrhyn Quarry

The Penrhyn Slate Quarry is a slate quarry located near Bethesda in north Wales. At the end of the nineteenth century it was the world's largest slate quarry; the main pit is nearly long and deep, and it was worked by nearly 3,000 quarrymen. It has since been superseded in size by slate quarries...

 at Bethesda

Bethesda, Wales

Bethesda is a town lying on the River Ogwen and the A5 road on the edge of Snowdonia, in Gwynedd, north-west Wales, colloquially called Pesda by the locals.- History :...

 to Port Penrhyn

Port Penrhyn

Port Penrhyn is a harbour located just east of Bangor in north Wales at the mouth of the River Cegin. It was formerly of great importance as the main port for the export of slate from the Penrhyn Quarry, the largest slate quarry in the world at the end of the nineteenth century...

 at Bangor

Bangor, Wales

Bangor is a city in Gwynedd, north west Wales, and one of the smallest cities in Britain. It is a university city with a population of 13,725 at the 2001 census, not including around 10,000 students at Bangor University. Including nearby Menai Bridge on Anglesey, which does not however form part of...

, 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 railway was around six miles long and used a gauge

Rail gauge

Track gauge or rail gauge is the distance between the inner sides of the heads of the two load bearing rails that make up a single railway line. Sixty percent of the world's railways use a standard gauge of . Wider gauges are called broad gauge; smaller gauges, narrow gauge. Break-of-gauge refers...

 of . It is one of the oldest narrow gauge railways in the world; and it was closed in 1962.

The Penrhyn Railway Heritage Trust are currently attempting to reopen a section of the original railway near Bethesda.

Llandegai Tramway (1798-1831)

The earliest predecessor to the Penrhyn Quarry Railway was the mile long gauge Llandegai tramway which was built in 1798. The tramway was connected to a local flint mill that ground clay and chert

Chert

Chert is a fine-grained silica-rich microcrystalline, cryptocrystalline or microfibrous sedimentary rock that may contain small fossils. It varies greatly in color , but most often manifests as gray, brown, grayish brown and light green to rusty red; its color is an expression of trace elements...

 into flints. These were transported to Porth Penrhyn on the coast by the tramway, which was one of the earliest overground railways in Britain. It included two balanced gravity inclines

Cable railway

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

 one from the floor of the Cegin valley near Llandegai to the hills above Bangor, the other dropping from there to the mill. Both inclines used vertically mounted winding drums.

Penrhyn Railroad (1801-1878)

The success of the Llandegai Tramway encouraged the owners of the Penrhyn quarry to consider a similar tramway from their slate quarry to Porth Penrhyn. The plan subsumed the existing tramway into a longer railroad that connected Bethesda to the sea.

Construction started on 2nd. September 1800, relaying and extending the Llandegai Tramway, with the first slate train traveling on 25th. June 1801. The new railroad was also gauge. The connection to the Llandegai flint mill continued to be used until 1831. The railroad was operated by horse power along with balanced inclines

Cable railway

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

 and gravity.

Penrhyn Quarry Railway (1878-1962)

By the early 1870s the Penrhyn Quarry Railroad was no longer able to keep up with the output of the Penrhyn quarry. By 1874 the decision had been made to replace the railroad with a steam locomotive worked railway. Steam locomotives had already been introduced with great success on the quarry's internal railway system and at the nearby Dinorwic Quarry

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....

.

At the end of 1875 the first "mainline" locomotive was delivered to Port Penrhyn and moved to the quarry workshops at Coed y Parc. The railroad was converted into the new railway in five stages from 1877 to 1878.

Locomotives

These are the locomotives that worked trains between the quarry and the port, often known as the "mainline" locomotives.

No.	Name	Builder	Type	Date built	Disposal	Notes
	Bronllwyd	Valley Foundry	0-4-0VB	1875	Scrapped 1906	Used in the construction of the railway by contractor Richard Parry
3	George Sholto	Stephen Lewin Stephen Lewin Stephen Lewin of Poole, Dorset, England was a builder of steamboats and steam locomotives.-Locomotives:Only a small number of locomotives were built, including:* 0-4-0 Ant and Bee, for 20 inch gauge Great Laxey Mine Railway, Isle of Man...	0-4-2WT	1875	Scrapped 1880
	Edward Sholto	De Winton De Winton De Winton & Co were engineers in Caernarfon, Wales. They built vertical boilered narrow gauge locomotives for use in Welsh slate mines and other industrial settings. At least six De Winton locomotives have been preserved...	0-4-0ST	1876	Scrapped 1907
	Hilda	De Winton De Winton De Winton & Co were engineers in Caernarfon, Wales. They built vertical boilered narrow gauge locomotives for use in Welsh slate mines and other industrial settings. At least six De Winton locomotives have been preserved...	0-4-0T	1878	Scrapped 1911
	Violet	De Winton De Winton De Winton & Co were engineers in Caernarfon, Wales. They built vertical boilered narrow gauge locomotives for use in Welsh slate mines and other industrial settings. At least six De Winton locomotives have been preserved...	0-4-0T	1879	Scrapped 1911
	Charles	Hunslet Hunslet Engine Company The Hunslet Engine Company is a British locomotive-building company founded in 1864 at Jack Lane, Hunslet, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England by John Towlerton Leather, a civil engineering contractor, who appointed James Campbell as his Works Manager.In 1871, James Campbell bought the company for...	0-4-0ST	1882	Preserved at Penrhyn Castle Railway Museum Penrhyn Castle Railway Museum The Penrhyn Castle Railway Museum is a museum of industrial railway equipment, located at Penrhyn Castle near Bangor in Wales.In the nineteenth century, Penrhyn Castle was the home of the Pennant family , owners of the Penrhyn slate quarry at Bethesda... , Bangor
	Linda	Hunslet Hunslet Engine Company The Hunslet Engine Company is a British locomotive-building company founded in 1864 at Jack Lane, Hunslet, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England by John Towlerton Leather, a civil engineering contractor, who appointed James Campbell as his Works Manager.In 1871, James Campbell bought the company for...	0-4-0ST	1893	Running on the Ffestiniog Railway Ffestiniog Railway The Ffestiniog Railway is a narrow gauge heritage railway, located in Gwynedd, Wales. It is a major tourist attraction located mainly within the Snowdonia National Park....	Rebuilt to 2-4-0ST/T
	Blanche	Hunslet Hunslet Engine Company The Hunslet Engine Company is a British locomotive-building company founded in 1864 at Jack Lane, Hunslet, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England by John Towlerton Leather, a civil engineering contractor, who appointed James Campbell as his Works Manager.In 1871, James Campbell bought the company for...	0-4-0ST	1893	Running on the Ffestiniog Railway Ffestiniog Railway The Ffestiniog Railway is a narrow gauge heritage railway, located in Gwynedd, Wales. It is a major tourist attraction located mainly within the Snowdonia National Park....	Rebuilt to 2-4-0ST/T
1	Llandegai	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...	2-6-2T	1916	Converted to stationary engine scrapped 1940	ex-War Department Light Railways War 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...
2	Felin Hen	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...	2-6-2T	1916	Sold 1940 to Australia, now privately owned France	ex-War Department Light Railways War 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...
3	Tregarth	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...	2-6-2T	1916	Scrapped 1940	ex-War Department Light Railways War 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...

See also

• British narrow gauge railways
  British narrow gauge railways
  There were more than a thousand British narrow gauge railways ranging from large, historically significant common carriers to small, short-lived industrial railways...
  
  
• 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...
  
  which purchased several PQR carriages

External links

• Penrhyn Railway Heritage Trust