The restoration of the Welsh Highland Railway has a colourful and complex history. This article provides the modern history.
The background of the Welsh Highland Railway (WHR)
The Welsh Highland Railway (WHR) was a poorly-funded job creation scheme, conceived in the early 1920s, to complete the construction of a 22-mile narrow gauge railway route from Dinas, three miles from Carnarvon (now Caernarfon) to Portmadoc (now Porthmadog). An earlier scheme to achieve this – the Portmadoc Beddgelert and South Snowdon Railway (PB&SSR) – had been abandoned in 1905/6 after it ran out of money.
The Welsh Highland Railway (Light Railway) Company (WHLR Company) was created in 1922, by a light railway order (LRO) under the Light Railways Act 1896, and construction began that year. The work involved joining two pre-existing railways with a new section of track. The northern half of the WHR incorporated the North Wales Narrow Gauge Railways (NWGR), built in the 1870s, from Dinas to Rhyd Ddu, at the foot of Snowdon (9½ miles), together with its branch from Tryfan Junction to Bryngwyn (another three miles). The southern end of the route incorporated an upgraded three-mile section of the Croesor Tramway, built in the 1860s. Between Rhyd Ddu and Croesor Junction; some new construction on the link between these earlier railways had been carried out by the PB&SSR around Beddgelert in 1905/6, but these works lay unfinished.
The PB&SSR section of the route had originally been intended to use electric traction, and would have included very steep gradients (1 in 23 in places). However the WHR was to use steam traction; and, as steam locomotives could not cope with such steep gradients, only some of the unfinished PB&SSR formation could be incorporated into the WHR. As a result, new track had to be built, giving rise to the reverse curves above Beddgelert, which gave an even gradient of 1 in 40 (2.5%) over a slightly longer route. At its southern end, the WHR was linked to the Festiniog Railway (FR) at Portmadoc and the FR provided a new station (Portmadoc New) to serve both lines. FR locomotives and rolling stock became a familiar sight on the WHR with through workings.
Construction of the WHR was largely funded by the Ministry of Transport, the local authorities and the construction company McAlpine (which did the construction work). These made loans to the WHLR Company, of £70,000 in all, in the form of debentures. Thus the railway was in debt from the moment it opened. The railway was opened throughout in 1923; however this turned out to be the railway's best year; it declined, and went into receivership in 1927.
With various local government officers appointed as receiver, the WHR continued to operate, primarily as a tourist attraction, until the end of 1933, when the local authority debenture holders declared their intention to close it. This prompted the Festiniog Railway to take out a 42-year lease on the WHR from 1 July 1934, but the poor traffic declined further, and the FR ceased to operate the WHR after the 1936 season. Unfortunately for the FR, the lease made no provision for early termination; so, even though they were no longer operating the WHR, the FR were forced to continue paying the rent. It took until 1942 before a court terminated the lease, thus releasing the FR from its obligation. This legal decision followed the requisitioning of the WHR's track, locos and rolling stock in the Second World War scrap-metal drive.
Having managed to rid itself of the WHR lease, the Festiniog Railway continued to operate on a freight-only basis throughout the Second World War (having suspended its passenger service on the outbreak of war in 1939), but closed almost completely in August 1946.
The legal status of the WHR trackbed
With little hope of reviving the WHR, a winding up order was made on 1 June 1944, at the instigation of Caernarvonshire County Council, and Mr Alwynne Thomas, a Llandudno accountant, was appointed as liquidator. One consequence of the winding up order was that any transfer of shares or debentures could not be validated, nor could new directors be appointed, without a court order. Over time the surviving WHLR directors died, and were not replaced.
The liquidator's task was to dispose of the WHLR Company's assets and distribute any monies raised among the creditors (i.e. the debenture holders), before winding the company up. By the time of his appointment the locomotives, rolling stock and most of the track had gone, and the company's principal asset was the now empty trackbed (or most of it, as the company had never actually owned the former Croesor Tramway section).
Peter Johnson, author of numerous WHR books, notes that "The debentures were not actually secured and, in 1923, the local authorities made the WHR agree to be party to a mortgage deed defining the terms of interest and principal repayment." This placed the debenture holders in a strong position. Following council boundary changes, the main debenture holders were the Department of Transport (some 42%), Carnarvonshire County Council (later Gwynedd CC) 17.7%, Merioneth District Council 3.5%, Dwyfor District Council 13%, McAlpines 11.8%, Branch Nominees Ltd 11.7% with 0.1% thought untraceable through a Mrs Conbran/Sir John Stewart.
Of the shares in the 1922 company, some 88.4% were known to have been held by H.J. Jack and passed to his successors.
The liquidator (and later, the official receiver) was mostly interested in obtaining the best deal for the debenture holders, who had funded the railway's construction and were owed a substantial sum of money. Thus at first, he was likely to sell the trackbed to the highest bidder.
However, due to the continued existence of the 1922 light railway order, disposal of the trackbed was not an easy matter. For a start, the LRO gave its holder legal entitlement to own the trackbed, and since the LRO was made out to the WHLR Company, it meant that the WHLR Company legally owned the trackbed. Secondly, although the liquidator could, and did, sell off some land (notably at and ), the trackbed's statutory status prevented him from disposing of any land, or asset, that could inhibit any future re-opening of the railway. This meant that the trackbed had to be kept in one piece and could only be used for railway purposes. On the other hand, over time, the trackbed became subject to a number of claims for adverse possession (an example being the station building at Snowdon Ranger). But the LRO's remaining powers prevented these claims from gaining traction since there is a legal question mark over the validity of such claims over part of a statutory undertaking.
All this meant that the trackbed could only be sold through one of two alternative legal processes:
Abandonment order – The liquidator could apply for an abandonment order. If granted, this would extinguish the LRO and then allow the trackbed to be sold off in parcels, like any other piece of land, to any purchaser. It could then be used for any purpose (subject to any required planning permission). However, applying for an abandonment order would incur legal costs. The liquidator had no separate funds with which to obtain such an order, nor did the WHLR Company hold any money to fund one. Thus the cost would have to be met up front by the share/debenture holders, or any prospective purchaser. Once the sale was complete, the purchaser would then have to obtain a new LRO if they wished to re-open the railway. However, the time elapsed between the making of the abandonment order and the making of any new powers to rebuild would be a window of opportunity for claims for adverse possession to gain validity. If such a claim was successful, any new powers to rebuild the railway would likely need to include powers of compulsory purchase to re-acquire it. Amending order – Alternatively, any prospective purchaser could apply (and pay) for an amending order under section 24 of the Light Railways Act 1896, to transfer the LRO from the WHLR Company to them. If successful, they, in turn, would become exclusively legally entitled to own the trackbed and could then purchase it, in its entirety, from the OR. This process would preserve the remaining powers of the LRO and would mean that the land could only be used for railway purposes thereafter. It would protect the trackbed from claims of adverse possession until the LRO could be superseded by new powers. If the purchaser subsequently decided not to reopen the railway, they would then have to obtain an abandonment order before they could do anything else with it.
With either method, however, the new owner of the trackbed would still have to apply for new powers, if they wanted to rebuild the railway. This was because not all of the LRO's powers remained intact. The WHLR Company's failure to reinstate and re-open the railway over such a long period of time meant that those parts of the LRO which related to the actual construction and operation of the railway had effectively been abandoned. Thus the remaining powers only served to protect the trackbed from redevelopment.
At the time, the use of an amending order to transfer a light railway order was not properly understood by any of the interested parties (nor their legal advisors), nor would it be until 1991.
Thus for many years, the only known means of transferring the trackbed lay in the liquidator (or later, the official receiver) first obtaining an abandonment order before any sale could go through. The share/debenture holders were reluctant to provide any funds to the liquidator or the official receiver, and thus the cost of obtaining an abandonment order would have to be borne by the prospective purchaser. In fact, the OR later made it a condition of sale, which delayed the winding up of the WHLR Company until 2003.
Welsh Highland Light Railway (1964) Limited
Soon after the WHR's closure, proposals were made to adapt the trackbed as a long-distance footpath. In the railway press some letter writers suggested that it should be preserved, but nothing came of either idea.
Reviving the Festiniog Railway
In 1951 the Festiniog Railway Society was formed, with the aim of saving and re-opening the closed but still intact Festiniog Railway. In the early days, the FR Society looked at acquiring the WHLR Company as a way to take over the FR. However the idea was dropped, due to the complicated legal status of the WHR.
The first WHR Society
In July 1961, a meeting was held at Shrewsbury railway station, to discuss the possibility of reopening the WHR. The meeting had been called by Bob Honychurch, a Shrewsbury businessman. Honychurch had been a volunteer on the Festiniog Railway and had been considering the possibility of re-opening the WHR, along with other FR volunteers (Bob Brown, Richard Hilton and Laurence Brydon) alongside their continued involvement with the FR. Honychurch had been in correspondence with the liquidator (Alwynne Thomas) for some time, and Thomas attended the meeting, where he stated that he was prepared to sell the WHR trackbed for £750, subject to terms which would have to be negotiated. It was agreed that a new group, to be known as The Welsh Highland Railway Society,This should not be confused with the later body with the same title, formed in 1992. should be created and an ad hoc committee was formed. A general meeting was held in October 1961 at Crewe railway station, where the society board was formally elected, with Bob Brown as chairman and Bob Honychurch as secretary. The aim of the WHR Society was to restore all or part of the railway.