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Oct 20, 2023

Various theories have been put forward for the railway's existence

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More evidence has emerged of a long-lost 19th-century railway on a Gwynedd beach. At low tide, submerged iron wheels and axles are occasionally revealed off Barmouth in an area where the remains of a narrow-gauge track have been spotted.

For decades, the track and rolling stock have lain hidden beneath the sand on the beach's northern end. It is thought that, in recent years, they have been slowly exposed by shifting sand patterns on a coastline that is constantly evolving.

Evidence of these changes can be seen at the Easter Island-style carving on Barmouth beach, affectionately known as "Son of Dum Dum". Having replaced a similar sculpture in 2021, the 10ft-high figure has since "shrunk" by a couple of feet as the beach profile has risen.

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Eighteen months ago, the discovery of sections of a narrow-gauge railway on the beach, seemingly leading out to sea, caused a minor sensation in the seaside town and beyond. Now, photos have confirmed the existence of associated rolling stock.

It's caused more excitement among long-time visitors. "I’ve never seen them and I've been going for 35-plus years," said one. "Guess they may have been uncovered on the beach for years and recent storms washed away the covering sands."

A common perception is that the narrow-gauge tracks were installed to move Edwardian bathing machines up and down the beach. Barmouth did have these machines, but old photos show they were never on tracks.

Another theory centres on the construction of the town's sea wall following the great storm of 1928 which devastated sections of the promenade. To remove the debris, a series of iron tracks were laid along the promenade in 1930.

More were installed on the beach to carry ballast for the town's new wave-return wall. The beach was turned into a construction zone for steam-powered machinery and associated works.

Were the rail tracks simply discarded after the 1930 works? Barmouth historian Hugh Griffth Roberts, curator of an enormous archive of local historic photographs, suspects not.

At the time, the seaside resort was building a tourism reputation and rusty tracks on its pristine beach was definitely not part of the offer. Moreover, said Mr Roberts, contractors involved in the works would not have left valuable equipment lying around.

Should industrial remains be left where they are as monuments to the past? Have your say in the comments below.

Instead, he believes, the railway tracks pre-date the sea wall by at least 40 years and were almost certainly laid in the late 19th Century for the town's new sewerage system. At a time of enormous growth, driven by tourism, getting rid of waste had become a priority.

"So many guesthouses were being built at the time that means of disposing of the resulting waste had become increasingly important," Mr Roberts told North Wales Live previously. In 1890, a new holding tank was built on the northern end of the beach.

It is thought the rail track was used to lay a 150 metre-long, cast iron pipe to discharge raw sewage into the sea at high tide, as was the custom at the time. The tracks may have simply been left in place to disappear beneath the sands.

In 1987 the Victorian discharge pipe was replaced by one buried deep beneath the beach which carried treated waste. A sewerage plant and pumping station were built at the same time.

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