Ffestiniog Railway Harbour Station

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The Ffestiniog Railway is a narrow gauge heritage railway, located in Gwynedd, Wales. It is a major tourist attraction located mainly within the Snowdonia National Park.The railway is roughly 13+1/2mi long and runs from the harbour at Porthmadog to the slate mining town of Blaenau Ffestiniog, travelling through forested and mountainous scenery. The line is single track throughout with four intermediate passing places. The first mile of the line out of Porthmadog runs atop an embankment locally called the Cob, which is the dyke of the Traeth Mawr "polder".The Festiniog Railway Company which owns the railway is the oldest surviving railway company in the world. It also owns the Welsh Highland Railway which was re-opened fully in 2011. The two railways share the same track gauge and meet at Porthmadog station, with some trains working the entire 40 mile route from Blaenau Ffestiniog to Caernarfon.HistoryThe railway company is properly known as the "Festiniog Railway Company" as this otherwise obsolete spelling is in the official title of the company in the Act that created the railway. It is the oldest surviving railway company in the world, having been founded by the Act of Parliament on 23 May 1832 with capital mostly raised in Dublin by Henry Archer, the company's first secretary and managing director. Most British railways were amalgamated into four large groups in 1921 and then into British Railways in 1948 but the Festiniog Railway Company, like most narrow-gauge railways, remained independent. In 1921, this was due to political influence, whereas in 1947 it was left out of British Railways because it was closed for traffic, despite vigorous local lobbying for it to be included.