164 Railway Development, [April, 



The little Festiniog. Railway, in North Wales, has been 

 frequently illustrated in support of the arguments for an 

 extremely narrow line, for though only 2 feet wide between 

 the rails it has paid dividends exceeding 12 per cent — that it 

 has been assumed somewhat hastily that the dividend varies 

 inversely as the gauge, and that by halving the width between 

 the rails the profits can be doubled. The fallacy of this 

 argument is proved at Festiniog itself; for there, even on 

 the face of the same grand mountains, overlooking the same 

 fair valley of the Dwryd river, is another line, not a branch 

 of the first, but rather its continuation to the village of 

 Festiniog, though worked and made by an independent 

 company, which has returned no dividend to its shareholders. 

 The Festiniog Railway proper has great advantages quite 

 exceptional, and these have been turned to the very best 

 account by the skill and energy of Mr. C. Spooner, C.E., 

 the engineer, who, by adopting the Fairlie Double Bogie 

 Engines, has obtained great pow T er under very adverse cir- 

 cumstances and want of room. Yet it must never be for- 

 gotten that the elements of success are manifest. Over 

 one hundred thousand tons of slate annually have to be 

 transported, and all down hill : there is not a fifth of the 

 load to take back in the empties ; there is no competition 

 whatever. The toll has been nearly treble, at least over 

 double that charged by any other line for many years ; and 

 the line has actual agreements with most of the great 

 quarries by which they would be prevented from any in- 

 dependent action to reduce their freights. 



The slates in themselves form a most compact and 

 handy class of goods for carriage. The average speed, 

 moreover, of passenger and goods trains does not exceed 

 8 to 12 miles an hour. All these circumstances prevent us 

 from taking the Festiniog line as any fair example of a 

 system which would work well elsewhere. To visit it, 

 and to enjoy one of the delightful rides up the mountain 

 side, with the panorama of land and sea around and crags 

 above, and look down on the meadows by Maentwrog spread 

 out as a verdant parterre, severed by the silver riband-like 

 stream, is a pleasure to be remembered in a life. There is 

 no such thing to be found elsewhere in the wide world ; it 

 is unique, and the enjoyment is accompanied by the exquisite 

 sense of having made some new discovery. Let us for a 

 moment analyse the feeling of having unlearnt the great 

 railway lesson one has been learning all one's life till one 

 visited by chance the vale of Festiniog. For this, and this 

 alone, the journey is worth making, and whoever goes with 



