Tanygrisiau rail station
Tanygrisiau rail station
Tanygrisiau means “below the steps”. The steps in question may have been the galleries cut into nearby slopes for slate quarrying, or they may have been the stepped pathways which led up to the nearby areas of Cwmorthin and Dolrhedyn.
To hear how to pronounce Tanygrisiau, press play: Or, download mp3 (15KB)
The railway and station are themselves on a ledge cut into or built out from the hillside. The station, on the narrow-gauge Ffestiniog Railway, opened in 1866. The housing which clustered around the railway produced a good flow of passengers, and the station building was enlarged c.1879. There was a loop for trains to pass each other, and several goods sidings.
The station closed in September 1939. By the time it reopened in 1978, almost all traces of the railway buildings had vanished. Tanygrisiau was the terminus for steam trains from Porthmadog for four years, while the remaining section of track was rebuilt into Blaenau Ffestiniog.
With thanks to Prof Hywel Wyn Owen, of the Welsh Place-Name Society
Ffestiniog Railway on HistoryPoints.org
Website of the Ffestiniog Railway
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