Palmerston shunting loaded slate waggons at Duffws.

This item is active and ready to use

Geolocation data

(52°59′42″N, 3°56′3″W)

Item details

iBase ID

1898

Title

Palmerston shunting loaded slate waggons at Duffws.

Date

04/08/1925

Palmerston shunting loaded slate waggons at Duffws, 4 August 1925. Passenger stock in loop, including both the semi-open Small Birmingham (ex-1st class) carriages Nos 1 & 2. There looks to be another locomotive on the far end of this train (Merddin Emrys according the photographer). Palmerston is most likely taking the loaded slates down to Glan y Pwll where they can be marshalled together with Dinas Branch waggons ready for dispatch by gravity. Note how the wooden slate waggon nearest the camera on the left has inside bearings, making it one of the oldest vehicles on the line.

This photograph provides a good view of the station building. Notice the strange canopies on the wall. On the other side of this wall are the gents, which might have something to do with their intended use.

Aside from the usual rakes of empty slate waggons, the siding on the far right is often seen full of non-slate goods stock, and this photograph is no exception. The two oil tankers are very interesting. Whilst they have wooden underframes on old wooden slate waggon axle boxes, the tanks are welded and probably relatively new. This raises the possibly that they are conversions from much older coal waggons. They were used in Maenofferen Quarry for many years and probably only ever travelled between the quarries and the Blaenau Ffestiniog yards. Their use at this time is something of a mystery, although by 1925 Maenofferen was beginning to use internal combustion engines, so it is likely these waggons were built in order to transport fuel up the inclines. The No. 5 tank now preserved is almost certainly one of those seen here, albeit now mounted on long slab waggon No. 25.

Behind these are a wooden slate waggon, a coal waggon (probably one of the Diphwys Casson private owner type - some of which may well have been used to make the oil tankers as they have some similarities) and lastly an iron 2-ton slate waggon being held in place with a sprag. On the far right in front of the tankers another very unusual waggon can be glimpsed, similar in size to the other two but of different shape and of riveted construction.

Source. Humphrey Household.

///passing.winds.solids
SH7027945959

This item includes these files

Image