Background

The Uniqueness of the Ffestiniog Railway
Ted Beausire

1. Obviously the world's oldest railway company. I suspect that even many FfR staff do not realise that we operate under, and derive most of our rights and duties from, an Act of King William IV's Parliament in 1832 and opened in his reign in 1836. Even the B&O are 2 weeks younger than us and have since been amalgamated anyway. So yes, Victorian Steam Railways are Johnny-come-Latelies. And we never closed: slate trains were passing over our metals until 1964.
2. Oldest locomotive working on (and continuously owned by) it's original company, yes, your friend and mine Gimpy, otherwise known as Prince.
3. Oldest articulated steam locomotive in the world: Melvin, or Merddin Emrys.
4. Youngest articulated steam locomotive in the world: depending on your attitude to the rebuilding/new build question the Square (Iarll Meirionydd, or the New Melve) as it was at the time I came up with the list, Dave the Double Engine, or Taliesin.
5. 15 & 16. I list them like this because they are probably the oldest surviving bogie coaches in the world, probably the world's oldest sub-metric bogie coaches, possibly the world's FIRST iron framed bogie coaches, almost certainly Europe's first iron framed bogie coaches. That, of course, is more than just one item
6. The bug boxes. Quite possibly the world's first (not just oldest: first. In the world.) sub metric gauge passenger coaches. And again, at the time I came up with the list, still in normal service.
7. At the time, the British railway industry was in its' order famine. We had the newest coaches in service in Britain. No seriously folks.
8. The biggest concentration of steam articulated locomotives in Britain, possibly the world/Europe. These were the days when you could take, as I did, a photograph of three locomotives standing on the exit road from Porthmadog fuelling point waiting for their next turn of duty, six or so times a day, two of them articulated. And we thought of the good old days!
9. I stand by Boston Lodge as the world's oldest locomotive depot: as a site/institution. Horses are locomotive, if not locomotive engines, and locomotives have been maintained or stored continuously somewhere around there since the late 1700s..... But yes, that one we didn't do ourselves but bought in.

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