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The Cwmorthin Tramway was a industrial tramway in North Wales, which connected the Ffestiniog Railway to the Cwmorthin Quarry and later the Conglog Slate Quarry. It was built in the 1840s or 1850s, rising through two inclined planes to reach the main Cwmorthin Quarry mill and its internal incline which rose from floor 1 to floor 8. In 1874, it was extended, rising up through a third incline to the Cwmorthin Lake level and continuing along the valley floor to reach the Conglog Quarry. The tracks to Conglog were abandoned in the 1920s and the rest of the tramway ceased to be used from the onset of the Second World War. ==History== Quarrying of slate in the Cwmorthin Valley, to the west of Blaenau Ffestiniog, began around 1810 but was not particularly successful, in part due to the difficulties of transporting the finished product away from the quarry. After a lull of some ten years, work began again in 1840, and in 1861 the Cwmorthin Slate Company was incorporated. The company bought the freehold to the land on which quarrying took place. At some point, a tramway was built to connect the mill to the Ffestiniog Railway near to the site of station. Boyd suggests that a survey for the line was prepared in the mid-1840s, and that the cost was estimated to be £1,407 and 19 shillings. The line was completed by 1850, when it was mentioned in Cliffe's ''The Book of North Wales''. However, Richards and Isherwood maintain that the tramway was constructed under the auspices of the 1861 Company, soon after it was established. The connection to the Ffestiniog Railway was never very satisfactory. A point left the main line, and immediately split into three tracks. Two were used for wagon storage, while the third passed through a gate, beyond which the twin tracks of the first incline began. Empty wagons were delivered to the sidings by the shunting engine from Blaenau Ffestiniog, but to get them up to the quarry, they were shunted by hand back onto the main line, and then onto one of the incline tracks. Loaded wagons followed the reverse procedure, so that they were marshalled in the sidings for collection by the Ffestiniog. Because this process involved moving wagons onto the main line, it could only be done when the single line staff for the track section above Tan y Grisiau was withdrawn from the token machine by the Tan y Grisiau stationmaster. He then supervised the operation of a small ground frame which controlled the points. A Board of Trade inspector visiting the site in 1864 objected to the arrangement, because there were no trap points to protect the main line, and ruled that distant signals must be fitted by the Ffestiniog Railway, that there should be a telegraph installed between the station and the drumhouse at the top of the incline, and that no trains should use the main line while the incline was in operation. The first incline headed towards the north-east, was some long and raised the level of the track by . It was generally known as the Village incline, and a stone bridge carried the minor road to the hamlet of Dolrhedyn over the lower section. There was a section of stone and earth embankment, and then a shallow rock cutting before the drumhouse was reached. This consisted of a drum which was long and in diameter, but little else, as there was no shelter for the brakesman who controlled its operation. The length of the wire rope differs wildly in different sources, ranging from to . The twin tracks of the incline became a single track as it passed under the drum and then split again to form two tracks where the wagons were marshalled. This section was in a cutting, some deep, which curved around towards the north-west. The track continued through cuttings and on embankments until the marshalling loop at the foot of the Tai Muriau incline was reached. The second incline raised the level of the track by another to reach the lower mill, which was later known as London Hall. At this point the tramway is on the contour. To the left of the incline, rubbish tramways from the mill served the mill tip. There was a network of tracks around the mill, and a second mill called the Cross Mill, where a 90 degree bend swung the route round to reach the foot of the main quarry incline, which rose in a north-easterly direction. This consisted of two sections, the first rising from floor 1 to floor 6, with a drumhouse as its head, and the second, continuing the same line, rising to floor 8, where there was a second drumhouse. The plan in Boyd shows a third incline on the tramway before the main quarry incline, but this is because the quarry incline is shown too far to the north-west.〔Ordnance Survey, 1:2,500 map, 1888〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Cwmorthin Tramway」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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