The dandy waggon is a type of railway carriage used to carry horses on gravity trains. [1] They are particularly associated with the narrow gauge Festiniog Railway (FR) in Wales where they were used between 1836 and 1863.
The dandy waggon is a type of railway carriage used to carry horses on gravity trains. [1] They are particularly associated with the narrow gauge Festiniog Railway (FR) in Wales where they were used between 1836 and 1863.
The challenge on the FR was to move slate from an elevated location to a harbour for shipping, in this case from Blaenau Ffestiniog to Porthmadog, Wales. [2] In 2006 this is a 28-minute drive over 11.9 miles (19.1 kilometers), [3] but in 1832 it was a remote mountain area. The railway was laid on an average grade of about 1 in 80 (1.25%). Trains running downhill were powered by gravity, with 3 stops. The total journey time was about an hour and a half. Trains were moved uphill by horses until 1863, the journey taking almost 6 hours. [4] It was therefore necessary to find a way to bring the horses back down again.
George Stephenson is credited for having proposed a solution: build special cars for the horses to ride in on the way down for use on the Stockton and Darlington Railway that opened in 1825. [5] By 1827 the Stockton and Darlington Railway was in difficulties with its unreliable steam locomotives, and was on the point of giving them up. They returned to using horse-drawn vehicles operated by independent contractors. Each horse was expected to haul some twelve-and-a-half tons of coal, making three round trips in six days. The work was exhausting for them and they soon became lame.
Stephenson introduced the dandy wagon in 1828, which was simply a four-wheeled cart supplied with hay, attached to the rear of a four-chaldron train in which the horse could rest on the downhill sections. It was said that if the dandy wagon was missing the horse would try to jump onto the rearmost coal truck. [6]
On the FR this gave the horses a chance to eat and rest on the way down, and after the slate cars were unloaded refreshed horses were available to haul the empty cars back to the top. On other railways the downhill horse haulage was generally shorter, occurring only along some areas of the track, but still allowed the horses a rest before going back to work.
According to the Traveller's Guide (Blue Cover) [7] Wagon number 50, a 4-wheel Iron Horse Dandy built at Boston Lodge c. 1861, was still in existence and stored at the Ffestiniog Railway museum as of April 1992.
Other names for horse-carrying cars are "dandy cart" and "dandy truck": [8] they all refer to a vehicle on a horse-worked railway that a horse pulls to the top of the hill and rides down the hill in. The term "dandy cart" is also used to refer to horse-drawn passenger trains on occasion. [9]
Almost all early railways used horses as the motive power for trains before the invention of the steam locomotive.
The Ballochney Railway used a "dandy-cart" on the two "Ballochney Inclines" each having a grade of around 1 in 23 for distances of about 1000 yards. A descending train was connected by rope and pulley to an ascending train; the weight of the downhill train pulled the up hill train up the hill. [10]
The geography of the Ffestiniog Railway may have had some impact on allowing this imaginative solution to be applied to a large percentage of its total haulage; a relatively long section of track, running exclusively between two points, where a relatively constant and continuous downhill grade could be maintained.
In 1828 Alfred Pocock, who was developing a non-rail horseless carriage propelled by a kite(s), proposed on a particular trip that the kite carriage should tow a dandy-cart to carry a pony in the event of the wind being unfavorable. [11]
In the UK, in the early days of rail and tramways, either spelling was acceptable. In the UK, today, in national rail operations, the spelling is "wagon". Within the Festiniog (note 1 F), during the 19th century the spelling was interchangeable. For commonality, now, a single g is often used. However, it is still common to use "waggon" to refer to goods stock. [12]
The term Dandy Wagon (regionally correct spelling) referred to a horse-drawn private buggy used in America during the 1800s. [13]
The Ffestiniog Railway is a heritage railway based on 1 ft 11+1⁄2 in narrow-gauge, located in Gwynedd, Wales. It is a major tourist attraction located mainly within the Snowdonia National Park.
The Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR) was a railway company that operated in north-east England from 1825 to 1863. The world's first public railway to use steam locomotives, its first line connected collieries near Shildon with Darlington and Stockton in County Durham, and was officially opened on 27 September 1825. The movement of coal to ships rapidly became a lucrative business, and the line was soon extended to a new port at Middlesbrough. While coal waggons were hauled by steam locomotives from the start, passengers were carried in coaches drawn by horses until carriages hauled by steam locomotives were introduced in 1833.
The Welsh Highland Railway is a 25-mile (40.2 km) long, restored 1 ft 11+1⁄2 in narrow gauge heritage railway in the Welsh county of Gwynedd, operating from Caernarfon to Porthmadog, and passing through a number of popular tourist destinations including Beddgelert and the Aberglaslyn Pass. At Porthmadog it connects with the Ffestiniog Railway and to the short Welsh Highland Heritage Railway. In Porthmadog it uses the United Kingdom's only mixed gauge flat rail crossing.
The North Tyneside Steam Railway and Stephenson Steam Railway are visitor attractions in North Shields, North East England. The museum and railway workshops share a building on Middle Engine Lane adjacent to the Silverlink Retail Park. The railway is a standard gauge line, running south for 2 miles (3.2 km) from the museum to Percy Main. The railway is operated by the North Tyneside Steam Railway Association (NTSRA). The museum is managed by Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums on behalf of North Tyneside Council.
A horsecar, horse-drawn tram, horse-drawn streetcar (U.S.), or horse-drawn railway (historical), is an animal-powered tram or streetcar.
A gravity railroad or gravity railway is a railroad on a slope that allows cars carrying minerals or passengers to coast down the slope by the force of gravity alone. The speed of the cars is controlled by a braking mechanism on one or more cars on the train. The cars are then hauled back up the slope using animal power, a locomotive or a stationary engine and a cable, a chain or one or more wide, flat iron bands. A much later example in California used 4 ft 8+1⁄2 instandard gauge steam engines to pull gravity cars back to the summit of Mt. Tamalpais.
A cable railway is a railway that uses a cable, rope or chain to haul trains. It is a specific type of cable transportation.
Cycloped was an early horse-powered locomotive, built by Thomas Shaw Brandreth of Liverpool, which competed unsuccessfully in the Rainhill trials of October 1829.
Traeth Mawr is a polder near Porthmadog in Gwynedd in Wales. The area was formerly the large tidal estuary of the Afon Glaslyn. It was created after large-scale land reclamation occurred in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. A large embankment, called the Cob, separates the area from the sea and carries a road and railway line.
Blaenau Ffestiniog railway station serves the slate mining town of Blaenau Ffestiniog, Wales, and is the passenger terminus of the Conwy Valley Line from Llandudno Junction. Transport for Wales Rail operate through services to Llandudno Junction and Llandudno. The station is a joint station with the narrow gauge Ffestiniog Railway, which operates primarily tourist passenger services to Porthmadog throughout most of the year. A feature of the standard gauge service is the availability on trains and buses of the popular "Gwynedd Red Rover" day ticket.
The Festiniog & Blaenau Railway (F&BR) was a narrow gauge railway built in 1868 to connect the town of Blaenau Ffestiniog in Wales with the slate quarries around Tanymanod and the village of Llan Ffestiniog, 3+1⁄2 miles (5.6 km) to the south. At Blaenau Ffestiniog it made a direct connection with the Festiniog Railway (FR) with which it was closely associated during its fifteen-year life. The railway was purchased by the Bala and Festiniog Railway in 1883 and converted to 4 ft 8+1⁄2 instandard gauge to extend the Bala Ffestiniog line, a branch of the GWR's line from Ruabon to Barmouth.
A horse-drawn vehicle is a piece of equipment pulled by one or more horses. These vehicles typically have two or four wheels and were used to carry passengers or a load. They were once common worldwide, but they have mostly been replaced by automobiles and other forms of self-propelled transport but are still in use today.
The Spooners of Porthmadog refers to the Spooner family of Porthmadog, North Wales who made important contributions to the development of narrow gauge railways both locally and throughout the world. James Spooner, together with his sons James Swinton and Charles Easton and other members of their family, constructed and managed the Ffestiniog Railway for over fifty years. In North Wales they were involved in the promotion of numerous railway schemes including many quarry lines, the Talyllyn Railway, the Festiniog and Blaenau Railway, the North Wales Narrow Gauge Railways and the Carnarvonshire Railway. Through publications and overseas family commissions they influenced narrow gauge railway construction in Russia, America and throughout the British Empire.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to transport:
The Bala and Festiniog Railway was a 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in, standard gauge, railway backed by the Great Western Railway (GWR) in north-west Wales. It connected Bala with Blaenau Ffestiniog.
The Rhiwbach Tramway was a Welsh industrial, 1 ft 11+1⁄2 in narrow gauge railway connecting the remote slate quarries east of Blaenau Ffestiniog with the Ffestiniog Railway. It was in use by 1862, and remained so until progressively closed between 1956 and 1976. The route included three inclines, one of which became the last operational gravity incline in the North Wales slate industry. The tramway was worked by horses and gravity for much of its existence, but a diesel locomotive was used to haul wagons on the top section between 1953 and its closure in 1961.
The Ballochney Railway was an early railway built near Airdrie, North Lanarkshire, Scotland. It was intended primarily to carry minerals from coal and ironstone pits, and stone quarries, in the area immediately north and east of Airdrie, to market, predominantly over the adjoining Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway. Passengers were carried later.
A minecart, mine cart, or mine car is a type of rolling stock found on a mine railway, used for transporting ore and materials procured in the process of traditional mining. Minecarts are seldom used in modern operations, having largely been superseded in underground operations by more efficient belt conveyor systems that allow machines such as longwall shearers and continuous miners to operate at their full capacity, and above ground by large dumpers.
A mine railway, sometimes pit railway, is a railway constructed to carry materials and workers in and out of a mine. Materials transported typically include ore, coal and overburden. It is little remembered, but the mix of heavy and bulky materials which had to be hauled into and out of mines gave rise to the first several generations of railways, at first made of wooden rails, but eventually adding protective iron, steam locomotion by fixed engines and the earliest commercial steam locomotives, all in and around the works around mines.
Wrysgan quarry was a slate quarry near the village of Tanygrisiau, Blaenau Festiniog, North Wales. It was worked intermittently from the 1830s, and was worked continuously from c.1850 until 1946. Wrysgan was an underground slate quarry, which was located on a small inaccessible site, some 1,390 feet (420 m) above sea level, to the west of Cwmorthin.
A History of the Kägy Relationship in America.
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