July 2025 Main-line Railways of Mid Wales

[QuentinDeakin]

At their meeting on Monday 21st July, the speaker Dr Di Drummond's subject was 'The Development of the Main-line Railways of Mid Wales'. The presentation succeeded admirably in completing the picture of the region's railway network by talks in earlier seasons on the Talyllyn and other narrow gauge railways. The history of the Cambrian Coast Line is one of tremendous engineering challenges and the contribution of some of the most famous Victorian railway and civil engineers, including Stevenson and Brunel, proposing wonderful but occasionally over-ambitious and impractical plans. The Mawddach and Dyfi crossings were just two of the major challenges presented along the route eventually chosen. Some less well known but even more vital figures were instrumental to the creation of the line: another engineer, the 'dependable' David Davies and an entrepreneur, the 'reckless' Thomas Savin, whose dream was to turn Barmouth into the Welsh Biarritz, and Tywyn and Aberystwyth into major resorts. This was also a tale of private company rivalry destroying the few opportunities that mountainous terrain allowed for linking networks east to west from north-west England via Bala. Di expressed her thanks to Sue Whitehouse for antique postcards from her collection used to illustrate her presentation, and to Ian Drummond for his research on the financing of the speculative ventures of the several companies working across Wales in the earliest period of railway construction. Discussion after the talk concerned not only the technical aspects of historical design, but the continuing importance of this vital transport link in another period of financial challenge. Di was thanked for an excellent presentation.

During the break members and visitors looked at a source supplied by member Richard Stoner, a souvenir four page spread produced by the Cambrian News in 1992 to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the opening of the Cambrian Coast line in 1867.