Corris Trackbed

Would I be right in thinking this hugged what is now the A487 pretty much all the way from Tan Y Coed to near where the Dulas meets the Dovey ?, south of Tan Y Coed the trackedbed is ridiculously hard to trace.

Would I also be right in thinking the Corris station at Machnylleth was where there's a couple of industrial units between the Dovey and mainline station now ?.

Can see plenty of giveaways of the old route at Corris and points north but not a great deal south of Maespath.

 

I couldn't claim to be an expert on the Corris Railway, but does this help:

http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=15&lat=52.6536&lon=-3.8449&layers=10&b=3

This is an OS 1:25,000 map centred on Corris from the 1937 to 1961 series - the railway is clear. Underneath is a modern Bing road map. If you look in the bottom left of the navigation panel on the left of the screen, there is a "transparency" option. This will make the old OS map relatively less intense and the Bing map relative more intense. So by playing round with the slider (try somewhere in the region of 20 - 30% opacity) you can still see enough of the old map to see the route of the track, but with the modern alignment of roads etc. on top.

You can also play around with which mapping series you use; both for old maps, and the modern overlay, from the options on the left (to choose the historic map) and at the top of the map (to choose the modern overlay - for example, change Bing road map to satellite imagery). The map can be moved around by "click and drag" like a Google map.

Tom

 

Interesting that the railway isn't shown beyond Corris. I thought it opened and closed throughout (except for the tramway section beyond Machynlleth which closed much earlier when the standard gauge arrived)?

 

Thanks Tom, that pretty much confirms my suspicion about routing and Machynlleth station site, of which I could find photo's of the NG and SG stations, but none showing both to show where they were in relation to each other.

In case your wondering, there's a Corris route for Train Simulator, but it's only the preserved section, which I fancy extending to Aberlefenni and Machynlleth to give a longer run.

 

Corris Railway Company Station and Carriage shed in Machynlleth! - https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.5...4!1swtg1F1TN3LV43h9BOIcYdg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 - Machynlleth mainline station is hidden behind...

 

Wasn't the railway beyond Corris another company?
Also I seem to recall it was different in construction, single blade switches etc more a quarry line than a running line.

 

If you change the background to the 1888 - 1913 series maps, the railway is shown continuing north to a "Mathew's Mill" at Coed Cae-cenau:

http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=16&lat=52.6555&lon=-3.8415&layers=6&b=1

Tom

 

Thanks Tom, I now know what I am going to be doing for most of this evening! A great site for tracing history on

 

I explored the Route alongside the A487 as a teenager back around 1965 or 6 while on holiday at Penal just down the road a bit.... then it was visible and walkable, I got a booklet on the Corris from somewhere or the other that showed the whole route and got battered a bit by Brambles and such, was worth it though!

If you want to see the full Track layout use the OS 1.1 million 1:10k,1900's under select a map.

The NLS Map library is a must have if you are into Narrow Gauge and Railway Simulators, currently I'm recreating the Lynton and Barnstaple in full in Trainz, already done the Ffestiniog and WHR thats to modern version though.

 

From Great Western Narrow Gauge by Peter Johnson - " The track had been lifted between Aberllefenny and Corris when the 1948 Ordnance survey was made, although Boyd stated demolition was not started until 16th November 1948 ".
Only just bought a second hand copy of this book( From the Bulleid Shop ). Will add more once I have had a chance to read the whole section on The Corris.

 

Woulde you believe that was the area I was suspecting but coulden't find any supporting photo's on Google.

 

Ok. I will try to explain the route of the railway in relation to modern roads and buildings. Moving from the north southwards.
The Ratgoed Tramway ran from quarries in the Ratgoed Valley to Aberllefenni. This was a horse worked tramway. While there was a community in the valley there was no road access until relatively recently.
The Corris Railway proper ran initially as a horse and gravity railway from Aberllefenni to a wharf on the River Dyfi near Derwenlas which is a couple of miles south of Machynlleth.
Aberllefenni station was raised above the road the route here is fairly easy to follow as is the railways path to the local quarries and the (still working) cutting sheds. Steam engines did not venture north of Aberllefenni station
The route from Aberllefenni to Corris is mostly still visible as it crosses the hillside and fields. The original vertical slate fencing clearly delineated the route of the railway.
The route through Corris itself is discernible if you know where to look, however the local council have recently opened up a hundred metres of the old trackbed, which runs in a tight slate lined cutting as a footpath.
Corris Station occupied the current village car park and the adjacent land occupied by the preserved railway. A good proportion of the original station has, however, been swallowed up by gardens and extensions to the houses the east side of Bridge Street.
The railway ran from Corris to Maespoeth, where the engine shed was placed in the v between the main line and the horse worked Upper Corris Tramway. The mainline ran across fields and through woodland this section of track is worked by the preserved railway.
At Maespoeth the railway moved to be adjacent to the road (now the A487) and for most of the route down to Machynlleth ran on a shelf between the road and the river. This part of the trackbed is easily followable, even from a car heading down the valley. The railway ran right by the road. The railway society has to overcome issues relating to level crossings and access but a railway could be reinstated on this section relatively easily. There is, however, a gap just south of Maespoeth where the railway has been broken by road straightening. This will require the building of a new embankment. At Ffridd Gate the railway left the road and crossed the river Dyfi. The Millennium cycle path and bridge nearly follows the route to the bridge but beyond this point it is not easy discern the trackbed until the Machynlleth Station where the Corris Railway Station and carriage shed are still extant. Albeit with some rather strange decoration applied to the station building's south wall. The line beyond this point was abandoned when the mainline reached Machynlleth and slate was transhipped to waggons rather than boats. It is, however easy, to see evidence of the first part of the Derwenlas route as there is a blocked up arch in the railway bridge.
I hope that this helps.

 

Machynlleth Low Level Station can easily be seen on the east of the main road just north of the standard gauge railway bridge. A section of surviving trackwork from the exchange yard preserved in situ is visible between the bridge and the station. The first part of the railway route leaving the station towards Corris is now an access road for the industrial estate, before it re-appears crossing the fields towards the Dyfi Bridge. Part way across the floodplain is a low bridge formed of two wooden beams that once marked the boundary between Montgomeryshire and Merionethshire - historically an old meander of the Afon Dyfi. The site of the railway's Dyfi Bridge now carries the Millennium Bridge for walkers and cyclists, and the trackbed on the north side is metalled as part of the bridge access path. The old station at Ffridd Gate is largely in the garden of Haulfryn. The line crossed the Llanwrin road immediately adjacent to the old Toll House and ran through what is now its garden before coming alongside the A487, which it ran immediately adjacent to all the way to Maespoeth Junction. The first stretch through Ffridd Wood is clearly visible, until it disappears under gardens at Doldderwen Crossing, reappearing the other side and crossing Pont Abergarfan - a stone bridge extending the one carrying the highway. The section by Pont Lliwdy has been landscaped away, before it goes through another garden and curves round into Pantperthog hamlet, from where the trackbed is largely intact past Llwyngwern Station (alongside the side road leading to the Centre for Alternative Technology) and over Pont Pantperthog (where the original rail-bearing metal girders still survive), passing Tan-y-Coed, Esgairgeiliog Station and Pont Evans level crossing until the break in formation at Pont-y-Goedwig is reached. From the north side of this break (immediately south of Maespoeth Junction) until Corris Station the rails follow the original formation. At Corris the bridge that carried the railway over the Afon Deri is now in a garden, but can easily be seen from the adjacent road bridge. Leaving Corris the first section is a footpath; at the end of the footpath the trackbed carries on through the fields before crossing the Aberllefenni road at Garneddwen. The next section is now the access road to the terrace of houses there. Approaching Aberllefenni the formation becomes the access road to Maes yr Orsaf, which translates as "Station Field", due to being built where Aberllefenni Station once stood.

Of the horse-worked sections, a few parts can be traced between Machynlleth and Morben, passing Derwenlas en route. The Upper Corris Tramway left the main line at Maespoeth and continued immediately alongside the A487 to Braichgoch Quarry, where it has been landscaped away, though parts of the branches to Abercorris and Abercwmeiddaw quarries can be traced. North of Aberllefenni Station the embankment that carried the Ratgoed Tramway over Llyn Owain Lawgoch is visible, and the tramway formation follows the road up the Dulas valley before swinging left into Cwm Ratgoed, where it becomes a forestry track past Cymerau Quarry up to Ratgoed Quarry.

 

I've read in several places of a plan to link the Corris and the Talyllyn railways at some point in the past (maybe early 20th century). Does anyone know if this got as far as a tentative route? If so, where would the link have gone?

 

Over/through the mountains?

 

Don't laugh. Someone thought about it!

 

sound idea, i'll start a facebook group

 

There was a rough map published in (IIRC) "Return to Corris". The Upper Corris branch (expensively upgraded) would have formed the first bit, thence towards Taly-y-llyn lake turning westwards. I've no idea where or how a junction with TR metals would have been managed. I'd imagine a first look at costing was as far as the idea ever got!!

The geography around Cader Idris suggests it would have been on the "challenging" side of "interesting" to operate. I wonder whether PB&SSR proposals for hydro-electric operation might have had something to do with any such proposal?

 

When the parent company, Imperial Tramways, dispensed with the services of J R Dix as Corris Railway manager in the mid-1900s his successor, J J O'Sullivan, looking for new sources of income to replace the closed Braichgoch Quarry, floated the idea of a rail link to the Talyllyn in a letter to the directors. Imperial was run from the offices of the Bristol Tramways, and O'Sullivan's idea was to use their expertise in electric tramways to extend the Upper Corris tramway over the pass towards Talyllyn, before swinging west on the hillside above the lake and heading for Abergynolwyn. How he would have crossed the steep-sided Glyn Iago isn't recorded, but presumably a Dolgoch-style viaduct would have been necessary. The directors don't seem to have taken the suggestion seriously, and AFAIK no route plan was ever prepared, and instead the Corris continued to run horse buses, and later motor buses, along the road between Corris and Abergynolwyn stations. I have always assumed that if the tramway had gone ahead it would have been something akin to the Manx Electric.

Much earlier there was a proposal to extend the Upper Corris tramway to Tyr Stint mines near Cross Foxes, and a plan for this route exists, although containing considerably less detail than for the sections of the Corris that were actually built. This is the proposal that appears on the plan in "A Return to Corris". That line would have swung north-east above Talyllyn, climbed the pass on the hillside above the road, crossed the road at the head of the pass and then made its way down the other side to Tyr Stint. It is difficult to see how such a line, if it had been built as a horse-worked mineral tramway, could have been adapted for steam locomotives or passengers, but it would nevertheless have rivalled any of the narrow gauge lines in Wales for scenic glories. In the end the Tyr Stint mine settled for an 18" gauge tramway to a wharf on the main road above Cross Foxes and presumably their output was then carted to a station on the Ruabon-Barmouth standard-gauge line.

 

Thanks for that, very interesting.
Must admit that the thought of a MER style electric tramway hadn't come to mind whenever I'd seen the idea of that link between the two lines being discussed previously, but it does make sense.
Very often the research and details of "might have beens" like this can be as fascinating as that of what was actually built.