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188:. The brake linkage comprised several pieces, each hand-forged. The brake handle was detachable and fitted over the main lever. It was decoratively forged with a lightweight curve. When not in use it was carried in the quarryman's pocket, a primitive form of anti-theft measure. This could have tragic consequences; one of the few fatal accidents was to children in the 1920s who crashed into a slate wagon through not having the brake handle. For reasons of safety, later operation of the cars became more organised, a responsible mine foreman leading the descent as 'captain', and setting a maximum speed. At times cavalcades of up to two hundred cars would descend in close procession.
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86:. The inclines were worked by gravity: slate was quarried from the upper levels and descended the inclines on small rail wagons under its own weight. Slate was worked on the middle levels of the quarry, sawn into slabs or split into roofing slates. Waste could be dumped from these levels to form large waste pits. Finished or part-finished slates were then lowered to the lowest level by a further incline and then taken to market by a narrow gauge railway.
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The inclines were cable-hauled with two tracks running over four rails, so there were a series of cable rollers down the middle of each track. The cars avoided these by running between the two tracks, using just their inner rails. Rather than the near-universal two foot gauge of Welsh slate railways,
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Their construction was a wooden plank, around two feet long. It rode on a single double-flanged wheel, with a V-shaped iron slipper on the rear of the plank. It was balanced by an iron outrigger to one side, with a pipe-shaped roller over its end. This wide roller also allowed for slight variations
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Some larger quarries were worked by quarrymen who lived in barracks on site during the week, others lived in villages below the quarry and travelled each day. Part of this journey was to ascend the inclines each morning, usually hauled up in empty wagons. Descending after work was a long, although
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Although quite widely known, the car gwyllt remained limited to the single quarry at Craig Ddu. This was due to the layout of the two main inclines: long enough to make the time-saving worthwhile, but also shallow enough to keep speed manageable and with a shallow run-out area at their foot.
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in gauge. To control the car there was a hand brake. Pulling upwards on this applied an iron brake to the tread of the wheel. Despite the simplicity of the idea, the cars were not unsophisticated in their manufacture. Most was made by the smith, but the cast wheel was made by a foundry in
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The car gwyllt was invented around 1870 by the quarry blacksmith, Edward Ellis. In later years they were made by Edward Jones, an independent smith living on Manod Road, who charged 5 shillings. Each quarryman had their own car and so an early purchase with a new starter's
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127:, along the valley to the other villages. The men could descend 1,000 feet, a distance of 1,800 yards including the walk between the two inclines, in around eight minutes: "50 miles an hour we went"
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After arriving at the foot of the last incline, the cars would be dropped into an empty wagon which would be raised back up the inclines during the next working day.
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of 25% and speeds of 100 kilometres per hour (62 mph) had been reached before a fatal accident in 1906 led to the slideboards being banned.
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Like the other mountain-top quarries in this area, a lack of water power at the top had displaced the working sheds down from the upper level
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found a way to speed their homeward journey. Rather than walking back down the inclines, they would use their car gwyllt to ride down them.
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Craig Ddu continued in operation until the end of the 1930s and the outbreak of WWII. It re-opened briefly during the war, to supply
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Craig Ddu had four inclines, with many workers in the sawing and dressing sheds below the upper incline. When the hooter of
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This novel mode of transport became a matter of interest outside the quarries and in 1935 it formed part of
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46:) is a Welsh invention used by quarrymen to ride downhill on the steep inclined planes of a slate quarry.
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The name "car gwyllt" has been applied to a small number of other Welsh rail vehicles. On the
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railways, hauled by men, horses or locomotives. These levels were linked by a series of
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sounded for the end of work at 4pm, there was a rush downhill to catch the bus from
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slate loading sidings, although this was not part of the quarrymen's route home.
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A further, lower, incline passed down through
Bethania to the
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477:"Postcard showing Graig Ddu quarrymen, Blaenau Ffestiniog"
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455:(Second ed.). RCL Publications. pp. 130–131.
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66:. They were worked as a series of horizontal levels or
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287:"Car Gwyllt: The Story of the North Wales Coasters"
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58:were steep excavations into the mountains of
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636:Slate industry in the United Kingdom
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497:. Llais Y Wlad. 15 August 1879.
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364:M.J.T. Lewis (February 1968).
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371:The Industrial Railway Record
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300:Hatherill, Slate Quarry Album
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481:People's Collection of Wales
329:People's Collection of Wales
224:Mount Washington Cog Railway
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176:would be a new car gwyllt.
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192:Other uses of "car gwyllt"
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531:The Heart of New England
631:Slate industry in Wales
597:52.991057°N 3.915171°W
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112:, quarrymen living in
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27:Welsh mining invention
412:"Railway Curiosities"
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42:("wild car"; plural:
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602:52.991057; -3.915171
573:The Velocipede Group
56:Welsh slate quarries
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203:or 'grey snail', a
154:Railway Curiosities
34:Riding a car gwyllt
626:British inventions
453:Slate Quarry Album
217:Hendre-Ddu Tramway
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110:Blaenau Ffestiniog
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70:, served by small
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571:Velocipedes, via
495:"Ar y Car Gwyllt"
462:978-0-9538763-8-9
265:team of quarrymen
228:"Devil's shingle"
16:(Redirected from
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64:North Wales
44:ceir gwyllt
18:Ceir gwyllt
615:Categories
585:52°59′28″N
565:Festipedia
430:Car Gwyllt
242:References
186:Porthmadog
146:Pathé News
40:car gwyllt
588:3°54′55″W
72:2 ft
60:Snowdonia
511:(1954).
207:hand car
174:tal mawr
150:newsreel
125:Bethania
435:YouTube
418:. 1935.
222:On the
50:History
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230:. The
68:lefals
557:Yahoo
398:(PDF)
236:grade
152:film
114:Manod
108:near
80:gauge
54:Most
538:2008
457:ISBN
38:The
433:on
135:GWR
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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.
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