Tan-y-Manod railway station

Tan-y-Manod
The station around 1875
Location
Place	Blaenau Ffestiniog
Area	Gwynedd
Coordinates	52°59′21″N 3°55′45″W / 52.9893°N 3.9292°W / 52.9893; -3.9292Coordinates: 52°59′21″N 3°55′45″W / 52.9893°N 3.9292°W / 52.9893; -3.9292
Grid reference	SH 705 452
Operations
Original company	Festiniog and Blaenau Railway
Pre-grouping	Great Western Railway
Platforms	0
History
29 May 1868	Opened
5 September 1883	Station closed to passengers
10 September 1883	Standard gauge service and engine shed opened
1906	Engine shed closed
Disused railway stations in the United Kingdom
Closed railway stations in Britain A B C D–F G H–J K–L M–O P–R S T–V W–Z

Tan-y-Manod railway station was just under one route mile south of the present day Blaenau Ffestiniog station in what was then Merionethshire, now Gwynedd, Wales.

The station was on the 1 ft 11 ³⁄₄ in (603 mm)narrow gauge Festiniog and Blaenau Railway (F&BR); it opened with the line on 29 May 1868. The F&BR ran the three and a half route miles from its southern terminus at Llan Ffestiniog to a junction with the Ffestiniog Railway (FR) at Dolgarregddu Junction near what is nowadays Blaenau Ffestiniog station.

The station site served three purposes:

In common with all other F&BR stations there were no platforms, carriages were very low to the ground, so passengers boarded from and alighted to the trackside. The station had a single-storey building on the eastern, outer, side of the sharply curving track. No details of its facilities have been published. In common with Festiniog and Tyddyngwyn stations, the only published photographs were taken from a distance, they lend the buildings the appearance of corrugated iron. The sole close-up photo is of the line's northern terminus - Duffws (F&BR). This shows the building to bear a striking resemblance to 21st Century PVC weatherboarding. If the line's other stations were made of the same material that would explain their corrugated mien.

In F&BR days the gauges of the quarries, the F&BR and the Ffestiniog Railway were sufficiently close to allow trucks to pass between the three, with the F&BR being near enough to FR standards to enable FR locos and wagons to use F&BR metals to reach Tan-y-Manod if needed, which they were until F&BR locos arrived some time after the line opened, and occasionally thereafter. Loaded wagons would descend the inclines from Manod and Craig Ddu slate quarries to Tany-y-Manod then be hauled northwards to the FR, who forwarded them to customers or to ships at Porthmadog Harbour.