The outbreak of war in 1939 soon stopped the tourist traffic and the railway never really recovered after the war ended. The railway closed on 1 August 1946. In 1951, on the initiative of Leonard Heath-Humphrys, a small group of people met in Bristol to see if anything could be done to restore the Railway. Obviously there was and on 23 July 1955, after a formal Ministry of Transport inspection, a passenger service run by volunteers was started from Porthmadog across the Cob to Boston Lodge, thus making the Ffestiniog Railway the second railway in the UK to be preserved and run by volunteers. It was not until 1960 that the first standard gauge railways were preserved, these being the Bluebell and Middleton railways.
Debate still continues over which was actually first.
The following text is taken from their respective websites. Since then it has developed into one of the largest tourist attractions in Sussex, yet it still remains true to its objectives of the preservation for posterity of a country branch line, its steam locomotives, coaches and goods stock, signalling systems, stations and operating practices. Middleton Railway Having been established by an Act of Parliament in 1758, the Middleton Railway , Leeds, can claim to be the oldest Railway in the world. It also played host to the first commercially successful, revenue earning, steam locomotives which entered service there in 1812. More recently it became the first standard gauge railway to be taken over by a preservation society in 1960.