Registered Museum No. RD1433 / Amgueddfa Gofrestredig Rhif RD1433
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Other Exhibits
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Other Exhibits
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(Please note: this description relates to the museum in Tywyn which is currently closed for redevelopment of the site; the new museum will open in early summer 2004 and this page will be revised as the new displays are developed.)
The items in the museum building include a display of different types of track, showing changing designs to suit different working conditions and advances in technology. A plateway wagon and track shows how narrow gauge lines began. Nearby is an example of the "Ceir Gwyllt" ("Wild Cars") on which workers at several slate quarries rode down inclines at the end of the day's work. Wagons elsewhere in the museum include London and North Western Railway and Great Western Railway slate wagons, a coal wagon from the Oakeley Quarry and a slab wagon from the Forest of Dean with flangeless wheels. There is also a host wagon from the four foot gauge Padarn Railway, carrying four smaller two foot gauge wagons on top, which were taken from the Dinorwic Quarries at Llanberis to Port Dinorwic by the larger system.
On the mezzanine level can be found the Welsh costume, complete with cloak and hat, worn by Hannah Evans who travelled regularly to Abergynolwyn station in the sixties like the Welsh costumed station mistresses formerly to be seen at Beddgelert on the Welsh Highland Railway and Tan y Bwlch on the Ffestiniog Railway. At the end of this gallery is a replica signal cabin, complete with a Saxby and Farmer "Rocker and Gridiron" type lever frame and staff and token instruments for the safe control of trains on a single line.
Around the walls of the museum are displays of tickets, signs and posters, representing most of the narrow gauge railways in the British Isles, such as the Lynton & Barnstaple, Corris and Talyllyn Railways; the Clogher Valley Railway in Ireland and the Isle of Man Railway. A further display features the Talyllyn characters of Tom Rolt and Edward Thomas, while elsewhere is an exquisite model of the former winding house and incline at Abergynolwyn by which means wagons were raised and lowered to and from the village. On one wall is a large display of locomotive nameplates from long defunct railways, along with builders plates from most of the manufacturers of narrow gauge railway engines. Various signals and other railway items in the exhibition hall lend to the atmosphere. A poster from the Corris Railway has recently been restored and is now on display.
Outside the museum are various restored wagons from the Talyllyn and Corris Railways; by the entrance to the museum is a Ffestiniog Railway disc signal, and a section of rack railway from the Snowdon Mountain Railway, the only line of its type in Britain.
On the Neptune Road frontage is a track with slate slab sleepers, and T section rail held in cast chairs by spikes. This is of 3' 6" gauge, and holds a wagon as used on the horse drawn Nantlle Railway near Caernarfon from 1828 to 1963. Work in progress in this area will result in a further wagon display, including a wagon from the Furzebrook Railway in Dorset, and a tub wagon from the South Crofty tin mine. Installation of a turntable will allow more wagons to be displayed.
At the opposite end of the Talyllyn Railway, the winding drum from the Abergynolwyn village incline winding house (demolished to make way for passenger trains to Nant Gwernol) is being restored on site, together with the installation of some demonstration trackwork and restoration of the wagon turntable from the same location.