Bala and Festiniog Railway

The railway originally connected Bala with Llan Ffestiniog. It was incorporated by the Bala and Festiniog Railway Act 1873 (36 & 37 Vict. c. ccvii) on 28 July 1873 and opened on 1 November 1882. In 1883 the line was extended by converting the existing Festiniog and Blaenau Railway between Llan Ffestiniog and Blaenau Ffestiniog from 1 ft 11+1⁄2 in (597 mm) gauge to 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge. The line terminated at Blaenau Ffestiniog (GWR) where until 1939 it connected with the Ffestiniog Railway to Porthmadog. At Bala Junction, the line connected with the Ruabon to Barmouth GWR line.

The Bala and Festiniog was vested in the Great Western Railway on 1 July 1910 by the Great Western Railway (General Powers) Act 1910 (10 Edw. 7 & 1 Geo. 5. c. xxii). On nationalisation in 1948 management of the line passed to the Western Region of British Railways.

The line closed to passengers in 1960 and to freight in 1961. An unusual feature of freight operation on the line was the carriage of 1 ft 11+1⁄2 in (597 mm) gauge slate wagons (provided by the GWR) on standard gauge transporter wagons between Tan-y-Manod and Blaenau Ffestiniog where the wagons were off-loaded in the large station yard and their loads of dressed slate transferred to standard gauge GWR wagons for carriage back the way they had come then on via Manod and Bala.

The building of the Llyn Celyn reservoir necessitated the flooding of the line. A diversion was considered but never built. A short section from Bala Junction to Bala remained open but was eventually closed in 1965.

The summit of the line was at Cwm Prysor which lay at 1,278 feet or 390 metres above sea level. The line served an extremely remote area of North Wales, most of which was not served by a main road until the A4212 road opened in the early 1960s.

In 1964, a connection was made through Blaenau to the Conwy Valley Line at Blaenau Ffestiniog North allowing access as far as Trawsfynydd nuclear power station; a loading facility for nuclear flasks was constructed on a siding a hundred yards north of the closed Trawsfynydd Lake Halt.

In 1982, the Ffestiniog Railway was reopened to a wholly new Blaenau Ffestiniog on the site of the former GWR station. Conwy Valley line services were extended along the 1964 connection to the new interchange station and Blaenau Ffestiniog North (LNWR) was closed.

On 17 July 1989, the first passenger train beyond Blaenau Ffestiniog ran to a temporary platform at Trawsfynydd (Maentwrog Road). Organised by Provincial, regular Sunday services ran from Sunday 23 July to Sunday 10 September in the form of an extension of the 09.45 Llandudno train, with a return at 13.40. A maximum of 60 passengers could be carried as far as Trawsfynydd where they were met by a bus to the nuclear power station for a guided tour.