In 2021, mysterious rail tracks leading out to sea re-emerged on a beach in north Wales - and now more evidence of the hidden, long-lost Victorian railway has appeared. There was excitement in the seaside town of Barmouth eighteen months ago, when sections of the 19th century narrow-gauge tracks were discovered on Barmouth Beach.
Now, the remains of an associated rolling stock for the tracks have also been spotted - with old iron wheels and axles occasionally becoming visible at low tide, reports North Wales Live. The track and rolling stock have been submerged for decades beneath the sand on the beach’s northern end.
It is thought that they have been gradually exposed in recent years by shifting sand patterns on the constantly-evolving coastline. This latest discovery has delighted long-time visitors.
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“I’ve never seen them and I've been going for 35-plus years,” said one. “Guess they may have been uncovered on the beach for years and recent storms washed away the covering sands.”
It is commonly thought the tracks were installed to move Edwardian bathing machines up and down the beach, it has been reported But, while Barmouth did have these machines, old photos show they were never on tracks.
Another theory is that after the great storm of 1928 destroyed parts of the promenade, a series of iron tracks were laid along it in 1930 to remove the debris. It is thought that more were installed on the beach to carry ballast for the town’s new wave-return wall following the storm, and that the beach was turned into a construction zone for steam-powered machinery and associated works.
But questions remain over whether the rail tracks were discarded after the 1930 works. Barmouth historian Hugh Griffth Roberts, curator of an enormous archive of local historic photographs, does not think so.
At the time, he said, the seaside resort was building a tourism reputation - rusty tracks on its picturesque beach were not part of the idyllic scene. He added that contractors involved in the works would not have left valuable equipment lying around.
He believes instead that the railway tracks pre-date the sea wall by at least 40 years and were almost certainly installed in the late 19th Century for the town’s new sewerage system. During a time of enormous growth, driven by tourism, getting rid of waste had become a priority, he said.
“So many guesthouses were being built at the time that means of disposing of the resulting waste had become increasingly important,” Mr Roberts told North Wales Live previously. In 1890, a new holding tank was built on the northern end of the beach.
It is thought the rail track was used to lay cast iron pipe - 150 metres long - to discharge raw sewage into the sea at high tide, as was the norm at the time. The tracks may have simply been left in place to disappear beneath the sands.
In 1987 the Victorian discharge pipe was replaced by one buried deep beneath the beach which carried treated waste. A sewerage plant and pumping station were built at the same time.
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