The

Corris Railway The Corris Railway ( cy, Rheilffordd Corris) is a narrow gauge preserved railway based in Corris on the border between Merionethshire (now Gwynedd) and Montgomeryshire (now Powys) in Mid-Wales. The line opened in 1859 as a horse tramway, runni ...

's Grand Tour was a

tourist Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring (disambiguation), touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tour (disambiguation), tours. Th ...

service that ran between 1886 and 1930. It involved a journey on the

, a charabanc connection to the

Talyllyn Railway The Talyllyn Railway ( cy, Rheilffordd Talyllyn) is a narrow gauge preserved railway in Wales running for from Tywyn on the Mid-Wales coast to Nant Gwernol near the village of Abergynolwyn. The line was opened in 1865Drummond 2015, page 17 ...

and a return via the Cambrian Railways line between

Tywyn Tywyn (Welsh: ; in English often ), formerly spelled Towyn, is a town, community, and seaside resort on the Cardigan Bay coast of southern Gwynedd, Wales. It was previously in the historic county of Merionethshire. It is famous as the lo ...

and

Machynlleth Machynlleth () is a market town, community and electoral ward in Powys, Wales and within the historic boundaries of Montgomeryshire. It is in the Dyfi Valley at the intersection of the A487 and the A489 roads. At the 2001 Census it had a pop ...

History

In 1878 the Corris Railway, a

narrow gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller structu ...

railway in mid

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...

was taken over by Imperial Tramways, a

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

-based company that rapidly expanded the railway. One of the innovations of the new owners was to encourage the use of the railway by tourists. They introduced horse-drawn charabancs to ferry passengers from the station at

Corris Corris is a village in the county of Gwynedd, Wales, about north of the town of Machynlleth. The village lies on the west bank of the Afon Dulas (which here forms the boundary with Powys), around that river's confluence with the Afon Deri ...

Tal-y-llyn Lake Tal-y-llyn Lake, ( cy, Llyn Mwyngil), also known as Talyllyn Lake and Llyn Myngul, is a large glacial ribbon lake in Gwynedd, North Wales. It is formed by a post-glacial massive landslip damming up the lake within the glaciated valley. The hamle ...

and

Cadair Idris Cadair Idris or Cader Idris is a mountain in the Meirionnydd area of Gwynedd, Wales. It lies at the southern end of the Snowdonia National Park near the town of Dolgellau. The peak, which is one of the most popular in Wales for walkers and h ...

, four miles to the north. The service was immediately popular and was soon extended in partnership with the nearby Talyllyn Railway to provide a "Grand Tour". Passengers joined the Corris Railway train at Machynlleth and travelled to Corris. From there they proceeded by charabanc to Tal-y-llyn lake, pausing for refreshments at the Pen-y-Bont Hotel, and on to

Abergynolwyn Abergynolwyn ( en, Mouth of the River with a Whirlpool) is a village in southern Gwynedd, Wales, located at the confluence of the Nant Gwernol and the Afon Dysynni. The population of the community which is named after the village of Llanfihan ...

, where they joined the Talyllyn train for the trip to the coast at

. Here they met the standard gauge Cambrian Railways train which returned them to Machynlleth. In 1892 the Imperial company moved its headquarters to Bristol, where it shared senior management with the

Bristol Tramways Bristol Tramways operated in the city of Bristol, England from 1875, when the Bristol Tramways Company was formed by Sir George White, until 1941 when a Luftwaffe bomb destroyed the main power supply cables. History The first trams in Brist ...

. In the early years of the twentieth century the Bristol company replaced the horse-drawn vehicles with motor charabancs.

References

{{Talyllyn Railway Corris Railway Talyllyn Railway