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Ditto from fractionally wider angle, showing the rock buttresses.  Although the WHR was not built until approx 1920, the tunnels date from 1903, when the Portmadoc, Beddgelert and South Snowdon railway started work to link the North Wales Narrow Gauge Railway to Portmadoc.  The WHR in 1920 merely had to increase the tunnel heights.  The PB&SS was planned to be an early electric railway, but before it ran out of money in 1906 it had purchased the 2-6-2T "Russel" which, passed from bankrupt successor to successor, still works on the WHR(P) today.  Despite the limited slate in this area there had been many prior schemes for railways from Portmadoc to Beddgelert even before the PB&SS was started and abandoned.  Some schemes such as the standard gauge Beddgelert Railway actually started construction, and had any of them actually reached this far both banks of the Glaslyn would have resembled a Swiss cheese !

Ditto from fractionally wider angle, showing the rock buttresses. Although the WHR was not built until approx 1920, the tunnels date from 1903, when the Portmadoc, Beddgelert and South Snowdon railway started work to link the North Wales Narrow Gauge Railway to Portmadoc. The WHR in 1920 merely had to increase the tunnel heights. The PB&SS was planned to be an early electric railway, but before it ran out of money in 1906 it had purchased the 2-6-2T "Russel" which, passed from bankrupt successor to successor, still works on the WHR(P) today. Despite the limited slate in this area there had been many prior schemes for railways from Portmadoc to Beddgelert even before the PB&SS was started and abandoned. Some schemes such as the standard gauge Beddgelert Railway actually started construction, and had any of them actually reached this far both banks of the Glaslyn would have resembled a Swiss cheese !   (2/14)

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