Penrhyn Castle Railway Museum

Penrhyn Castle Railway Museum
Charles of the Penrhyn Quarry Railway
Penrhyn Castle Railway Museum is located in Gwynedd
Penrhyn Castle Railway Museum
Location within Gwynedd
Established1951 (1951)
LocationLlandygai, Gwynedd, Wales
Coordinates53°13′35″N 4°05′41″W / 53.2264°N 4.0947°W / 53.2264; -4.0947
TypeRailroad museum
OwnerNational Trust
WebsitePenrhyn Castle Railway Museum

The Penrhyn Castle Railway Museum (Welsh: Amgueddfa Rheilffordd Castell Penrhyn) is a museum of industrial railway equipment, located at Penrhyn Castle near Bangor in Wales.

In the nineteenth century, Penrhyn Castle was the home of the Pennant family (from 1840, the Douglas-Pennants), owners of the Penrhyn slate quarry at Bethesda. The quarry was closely associated with the development of industrial narrow-gauge railways, and in particular the Penrhyn Quarry Railway (PQR), one of the earliest industrial railways in the world. The PQR ran close to Penrhyn Castle, and when the castle was bequeathed to the National Trust in 1951 a small museum of industrial railway relics was created in the stable block.

The first locomotive donated to the museum was Charles, one of the three remaining steam locomotives working on the PQR. Over the years a number of other historically significant British narrow-gauge locomotives and other artifacts have been added to the collection.[1]

In early 2024, it was announced that the majority of the locomotives were to be moved to new homes, with the railway museum to become a new "Industrial Penrhyn" experience.[2]

  1. ^ "Penrhyn castle: end of an era?". Steam Railway. No. 555. 29 February 2024. pp. 56–63.
  2. ^ "Six locomotives re-homed in Penrhyn museum reshuffle". Steam Railway. No. 554. 1–28 February 2024. p. 14.