page_title: Talyllyn Railway
section_title: Less money is made: 1880s-1910
hierarchical_section_title: Talyllyn Railway / History / Less money is made: 1880s-1910
caption_attribution_description: Talyllyn Railway locomotive No. 1 Talyllyn at the foot of the Allywyllt Incline, around 1894
context_page_description: The Talyllyn Railway is a narrow-gauge preserved railway in Wales. It runs for 7.25 miles from Tywyn on the Mid-Wales coast to Nant Gwernol near the village of Abergynolwyn. The line was opened in 1866 to carry slate from the quarries at Bryn Eglwys to Tywyn. It was the first narrow gauge railway in Britain authorised by Act of Parliament to carry passengers using steam haulage. Despite severe under-investment, the line remained open, and in 1951 it became the first railway in the world to be preserved as a heritage railway by volunteers.
  Since preservation, the railway has operated as a tourist attraction. It has increased the amount of rolling stock it has. It has done this by buying and building new locomotives and carriages. In 1976, an extension was opened along the former mineral line from Abergynolwyn to the new station at Nant Gwernol. In 2001, the preservation society celebrated its 50th anniversary. In 2005 a major rebuilding and extension of Tywyn Wharf station took place. This included a much-expanded facility for the Narrow Gauge Railway Museum.
  The fictional Skarloey Railway was based on the Talyllyn Railway.
context_section_description: Starting in the 1880s, the "Grand Tour" was popular with people visiting the area, called tourists. People could take the Talyllyn and Corris trains and go through Tal-y-llyn Lake and Cadair Idris. Then, when they returned, they could use Cambrian Railways trains. The need for slate slowed down for the last twenty years of the 1880s. Many quarries fired people or closed. Even the quarries that dug up more slate due to other quarries closing often closed eventually. This made the need for the trains less, and made the railroad companies make less money.
caption: Talyllyn at the foot of the Alltwyllt incline. This is where Nant Gwernol station is today. The photograph was taken in 1890.
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D80", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "QuickTime 7.3", "Image DateTime": "2008:03:11 18:10:12", "Image HostComputer": "Mac OS X 10.4.9", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "252", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "624", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4631", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/15", "EXIF FNumber": "28/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Unidentified", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "800", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2008:03:11 18:04:07", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2008:03:11 18:04:07", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "49/10", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "70", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area"}