Great Orme Tramway

Victoria station at the foot of the line.

Great Orme Funicular Tramway
Legend 756 Summit Complex passing loop St Trudno's Roadlevel crossing 0 Halfway 797 interlaced track passing loop Old Roadstreet running 0 Victoria

The Great Orme Tramway (Welsh: Tramffordd y Gogarth) is a cable-hauled 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) gauge tramway in Llandudno in north Wales.

This is Great Britain's only remaining cable operated street tramway and one of only three surviving in the world^{[citation needed]}. It takes passengers from Llandudno Victoria Station to just below the summit of the Great Orme headland. Operation of the tramway differs from the better-known San Francisco system in that it is not a cable car but rather a street running funicular (similar to the Lisbon system), where the cars are permanently fixed to the cable, and are stopped and started by stopping and starting the cable. As one car is ascending, the other is descending, and they meet midway.^{[citation needed]}

The tramway was opened on two stages: the lower section on 31 July 1902 and the upper on 8 July 1903. The two sections operate independently, with two cars on each section which are mechanically separate. The lower section is built on or alongside the public road and has gradients as steep as 1 in 3.8. The cable on this section lies below the road surface in a conduit between the rails. The bottom half of the section is single track, but above the passing loop it has interlaced double track. In comparison, the upper section is less steep, with a maximum gradient of 1 in 10, and is single track apart from a short double track passing loop equipped with Abt type points to accommodate the cable.^{[citation needed]}

The original power house, at the Halfway station between the lower and upper sections, was equipped with winding gear powered by steam from coke-fired boilers. This was replaced in 1958 by electrically powered apparatus. In 2001, the entire Halfway station, its control room and its power plant were completely rebuilt and re-equipped.^{[citation needed]}

The tramway uses four tramcars, in service since 1902. An overhead wire telegraph was formerly used for communication between the tram and the engineer-driver in charge of winding the drum, and has been replaced with an induction-loop radio-control system.

The tramway has three main stations, the lower station named "Victoria" after the hotel that formerly occupied the station site, the middle one aptly named 'Halfway', and the Great Orme Summit station. Passengers must change trams at the Halfway station.^{[citation needed]}

Incidents

• On Sunday 30 April 2000, on the day of the Llandudno Transport Festival, 37 passengers were injured with 17 requiring hospital treatment following a head-on collision between trams 6 and 7 on the passing loop of the upper section. The cause of the accident, described as the most serious since the opening in 1902, was initially thought to be a points problem.
• Shortly after midday on 15 September 2009 two trams on the upper section collided at a passing loop just above Halfway station. No serious injuries were reported, but both the Rail Accident Investigation Branch and the operators, Conwy County Borough Council, launched investigations.

• 

  The start of the line, seen from Victoria Station

• 

  Looking down Old Road and east over Llandudno Bay.

• 

  Two cars passing at a passing loop

• 

  Tram No. 6 nearing the summit of the Great Orme

References

1. J. I. C. Boyd; Narrow Gauge Railways in North Caernarvonshire Volume 3 Part 7 The Great Orme Tramway and Tramroad The Oakwood Press, 1986
2. R.C. Anderson, A.M.Inst.T.; The Great Orme Railway Light Railway Transport League (later edition called The Great Orme Tramway).
3. Keith Turner; The Great Orme Tramway – Over a Century of Service Gwasg Carreg Gwalch, Llanwrst, 2003.

External links

• Official Site
• Information about the Tramway
• Great Orme Tramway History