Norman Gurley has been associated with the Ffestiniog Railway since the 1950's. For a long time a member of staff, latterly in the booking office, he has built a large collection of photographs and memories of the Railway in the preservation era.
After closure of the Ffestiniog Railway during World War Two, reopening started in 1955, but was hampered because upper stretches of the line were flooded by a hydro-electric scheme. The Deviation was to be a 21/2 mile section of completely new trackbed to gain height by means of a spiral then skirt the new lake. The new line started immediately north of Dduallt station and the first sod was cur nearby in a ceremony on 2nd January 1965.
There were no funds available and labour could not be spared from the railway's existing workforce so the early pioneers needed resourcefulness and perseverance, by their enthusiasm was infections and, to the surprise of many, the Deviationists went from strength to strength. Four groups provided the weekend workforce: London A, Bristol, London B and Northern, each headed by a character who had the ability to inveigle total strangers into embarking on a wild weekedn in North Wales, with adventure, socialising and fun offered in return for a little digging. There was no emphasis on railway building; Deviationists always took delight in stressing that they had no interest in railways, though eventually many of them became involved in various aspects of the Railway and indeed gained senior positions in some departments.
The wild weekend would begin with the long journey by road to Tan-y-bwlch station, where luggage and provisions would be loaded on to trolleys, mostly based on Hudson skip frames. Pushing the trolleys up the grade through the dark and whatever elements the Vale of Ffestiniog had laid on was indeed an adventure, as was carrying the provisions down the steep and slippery path to the Mess at Dduallt Manor. Daylight hours for two days would be spent loading rock into skips and then trundling them to the tipping site, in the traditional "cut and fill" principle adopted by railway navvies a century and a quarter earlier, then the highlight of the weekend would be a hair-raising gravity run back to Tan-y-bwlch on the Sunday evening.
Inevitably some found the weekend an expensive and unglamorous bore, and were never heard of again. Into that category probably fell a group of Egyptian art students. Legend is unclear whether they did any useful work, but most emphatic that they wrote off a brand-new custom-built hired minibus when surprised by the incoming tide on Black Rock Sands. Fortunately a great number was hooked by the experience and became regulars, often meeting their future spouses in the process as there was never any question of sexual discrimination in the groups. Perhaps there was just a little discrimination: in later years when dump trucks and suchlike became available ladies were often encouraged to drive them so that the menfolk could concentrate on digging!
Until permanent staff and Simplex locos appeared on the scene, the trolly trundles were the subject of much debate. Weird and wonderful pump trolleys were devised and constructed in suburban garages, usually requiring much more effort to move than a straightforward push. In the years 1966 and 1967 there was the added ingredient of track relaying between Tan-y-bwlch and Ddualt also involving weekend volunteers. One Sunday evening the trlley flotilla found to their cost that the gravitable length of track open to them had shortened by half a mile since Friday evening, and trolleys, bodies and luggage all somersaulted for a few more spectacular yards towards Tan-y-bwlch.
The first work sites had numbers. No 1 embankment started at Dduallt station and led to No 2 cutting. Very quickly sites began to acquire more interesting names: Barn Site, Midge Site, Two Trees, Dingle and Tunnel South need no explanation. Dragon and New Moon do, but the writer is unable to help. Spooner's Hollow was a rare acknowledgement of the Railway's history. Rosary was started by two girls, Rosalind and Hilary.
Once Bunny Lewis had extracted himself from the Royal Marines and become the first full-time professional Deviationist, a new labour force became available. "Godsquads" from Crusaders, Christian Fellowship and similar groups formed week or fortnight working parties in the summer months and in some years Bunny hardly had a free day from July to September. Easter and New Year also kept him busy with mixed week and weekend groups. The busiest weekend of the year was invariably the "First Sod" anniversary weekend, when members of the Railway's Management and staff were invited to join the Deviationists at a grand party in one of the messes. A major project, the construction of Rhoslyn Bridge and Dduallt, was done jointly by teams from a Bostal establishment and Westmister Public School. They worked and relaxed well together.
Some later new line projects, such as the tunnel boring and shotcreting, and the construction of the subterranean bridges over the penstock pipes behind the power station, involved a more skilled and professional labour force, but the original groups and welcome new ones were still engaged in culvert construction and other work right up until the day of the "Golden Spike" ceremony at Tanygrisiau station on 24th June 1978.
Return to the front page Return to the What Can I Do page