CC3002 Cooper-Craft 16mm Croesor Wagon

This particular wagon is a model of the type used in the Parc Quarries in the Croesor Valley. These quarries joined to the quays of the Portmadoc by a private horse drawn railway called the Croesor Tramway. The lower section of this line was later incorporated in the ill fated Welsh Highland Railway.

Iron wagons of this type were used to convey slate from the quarry face to the slate mills or cutting sheds and then to transfer the offcuts or ‘slate rubbish’ to the tips that even today form such a brooding memorial to the slate industry. Some types of this wagon were open ended to facilitate unloading by upending and one of the ends may be left off the model to depict this type. Sometimes wagons were lifted bodily out of the workings by vast overhead lifts called ‘Blondins’ after the tightrope walker of that name! This is why there are four rings on the sides.

On the Croesor Tramway and other quarry lines like the Penrhyn sych wagons were also used to bring stores like coal up to the workings as well as taking bags of slate dust for which there were industrial uses, down to the port. This is most useful as it enables the wagon to be used on a model or garden railway for a wide variety of traffic such as coal, sand, ballast etc. in fact anything that could not be stowed in the normal slatted wagon used for finished slates.

This particular type of wagon was not fitted with brakes.