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Manod Mawr North Top

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Manod2
Manod2

Manod Mawr North Top is a mountain in North Wales and forms part of the Moelwynion. It lies directly to the north of its parent Manod Mawr, separated by the Graig Ddu Quarry. Crossing the quarry to reach the main summit can be dangerous. There are also a few mine adits on the northern slopes. There were fears that the top may eventually be removed.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Manod Mawr North Top (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Manod Mawr North Top
Bwlch y Manod,

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Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 52.98348 ° E -3.9036 °
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Address

Bwlch y Manod
LL41 4BA , Ffestiniog
Wales, United Kingdom
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Graig Ddu quarry
Graig Ddu quarry

Graig Ddu quarry (also known as Craig Ddu quarry, Manod quarry, or, since the closure of the nearby Cwt y Bugail quarry, Cwt y Bugail quarry) is a disused slate quarry near Blaenau Ffestiniog (formerly Blaenau Festiniog), in Gwynedd (formerly Merioneth or Merionethshire), North Wales. Although output was only about 3,000 tons a year (3,140 tons in 1882), it reputedly has 36 saw tables and the same number of dressing machines on site. As with others in the area, the quarry suffered from a lack of water, resulting in the siting of the mill some distance away, at a lower level.Slate was initially taken to a wharf on the River Dwyryd for onward transport, but in the 1860s, three inclines were built to link the quarry to the road at Tan y Manod. In 1869, this was extended by a fourth incline to connect to the Festiniog and Blaenau Railway. In 1883, the railway was replaced by a standard gauge extension of the Great Western Railway, and quarry wagons were carried piggy-back style to Blaenau Ffestiniog. The quarry was one of the first in the Blaenau Ffestiniog area to use compressed air drills for extracting the rock, and unlike most quarries in the area, all working remained on the surface until the 1920s, when underground mining began. The quarry was known for the use of ceir gwyllt (wild cars), simple devices that allowed the quarrymen to ride down the inclines to the Tan y Manod road at the end of the day. This was possible because of the relatively shallow pitch of the inclines, but it was still a dangerous practice, and a number of workers died as a result of accidents on them. The quarry closed in 1939, although it operated briefly at the end of the Second World War. From the 1980s, untopping of the neighbouring Bwlch y Slaters quarry began, and the operation soon engulfed Graig Ddu quarry. Currently, planning permission to extract rock ends on 31 December 2022, but Welsh Slate, the operating company, have applied for permission to continue working the site until 2048.

Festiniog and Blaenau Railway
Festiniog and Blaenau Railway

The Festiniog & Blaenau Railway (F&BR) was a narrow gauge railway built in 1868 to connect the town of Blaenau Ffestiniog in Wales with the slate quarries around Tanymanod and the village of Llan Ffestiniog, 3+1⁄2 miles (5.6 km) to the south. At Blaenau Ffestiniog it made a direct connection with the Festiniog Railway (FR) with which it was closely associated during its fifteen-year life. The railway was purchased by the Bala and Festiniog Railway in 1883 and converted to 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge to extend the Bala Ffestiniog line, a branch of the GWR's line from Ruabon to Barmouth. The promoters owned the land on which the line was built, so no parliamentary process was needed to incorporate the company or proceed with building, though the operators sought and obtained Board of Trade inspection before opening as if that were a statutory requirement.Officially the line's gauge was 1 ft 11+3⁄4 in (603 mm), however, a Board of Trade inspection in 1868 recorded it as 1 ft 11+1⁄4 in (591 mm), as did the locomotives' manufacturer's catalogue, repeated in the magazine "Engineer". A survey of the line conducted by Vignes in 1878 gave the gauge as 1 ft 11+1⁄2 in (597 mm). In practice the tolerances were sufficiently wide to allow Festiniog Railway locomotives and rolling stock to use the line, but there is no record of F&BR stock venturing onto FR metals other than transit to Minffordd when their two locomotives made rare visits to Wolverhampton for heavy repair. They are unlikely to have made these trips along the FR in steam and may even have travelled on flat wagons.