Wild car
Not a Mustang nor a Ferrari, but a skimpy piece of wood mounted on a wheel and a rod of iron racing 50 mph down a Welsh mountain.
Getting slate down the mountain from the high quarries of Ffestiniog was a feat of Victorian engineering ingenuity. The power was provided by a wagon full of slate going down to pull up an empty wagon on a pair of narrow gauge rails running the length of an incline. Between each pair of rails was a steel rope, running on rollers, which connected the dependent wagons.
The Craig Ddu quarry to the north of Manod Mawr had a set of three inclines to reach the road, and a fourth to link with the railway below running to Blaenau. This was the route to market. It was also the quickest way home for the workers after a hard day’s work.
I asked Emrys Evans, who was apprenticed at the quarry in 1933, how fast cars went down an incline. ‘I can’t tell you in seconds, but I can describe it as follows. At the end of the shift the men were allowed to place their cars on the track and as soon as the four o’clock hooter blasted from the Oakeley quarry, they were off. Most people started from the second incline. They were able to do these two inclines, run between them, put the car into an empty wagon, and reach the bus stop by the time the bus to Blaenau departed five minutes later. Buses were very punctual in those days.’
The length of the inclines to the road was 1,800 yards with a descent of 1,040 feet, and the journey, including the connecting sections, was reputedly done in about eight minutes.
The Wild Car (or Car Gwyllt) was an innovation credited to the quarry’s blacksmith in the 1870s. It ran between the two pairs of rails which were separated by a gap of three feet, and, more importantly, without any obstructions such as the rollers between the narrow gauge tracks.
The car consisted of very little. A piece of wood about two foot long and eight inches wide, with a ‘flanged’ iron wheel towards the front and a V-shaped iron heel at the back. An iron bar stretched out from the centre of the board across to the other track to provide the balance on the other rail. Speed was controlled with a brake, which consisted of a handle between the driver’s knees that pressed a brake pad against the wheel – heels were also used!