Festiniog Railway Company
From Festipedia, hosted by the FR Heritage Group
Created initially by Irish financiers, with an office in Dame Street, Dublin in 1831-2.
The Festiniog (only one "f") Railway Company was incorporated by an Act of King William IV's Parliament on 23rd May 1832 to build a narrow gauge railway line from Portmadoc to Blaenau Ffestiniog. Opened in 1836 to carry slate from the rapidly expanding mines at Blaenau Ffestiniog to the newly built harbour at Porthmadog, from where the slate was exported all over the world. In its heyday, the Festiniog Railway carried 130,000 tons of slate a year but after the decline in the slate industry the Railway eventually closed in 1946. Following restoration and reopening the Festiniog Railway is now the longest and busiest of the Great Little Trains of Wales, enjoyed by many thousands of visitors every year.
The Uniqueness of the Festiniog Railway:
- It is now the oldest unamalgamated railway company in the world and is one of the few statutory companies still existing in the UK.
- Oldest locomotive working on (and continuously owned by) its original railway; Prince.
- Oldest working articulated steam locomotive in the world; Merddin Emrys.
- Probably the oldest surviving bogie coaches in the world, probably the world's oldest sub-metric bogie coaches, possibly the world's FIRST iron framed bogie coaches, almost certainly Europe's first iron framed bogie coaches; 15 and 16
- Quite possibly the world's first (not just oldest: First. In the world.) sub-metric gauge passenger coaches still in normal service; Bug Boxes.
- The world's oldest locomotive depot - as a site / institution; Boston Lodge. Horses are locomotives, if not locomotive engines, and locomotives have been maintained or stored continuously somewhere around there since the late 1700's.
[edit]Police Force
From BTP records The Railway employed just one Police Officer. Board of Trade Returns for 1884 show a Police Inspector was based at the Company's Head Office
The company is also referred to as FRC or FR Co., or simply FR in publications