The Incline and the Wagons — Exporting the Slate The quarry
owners invested heavily in building roads and railroads to
improve the links between their quarries and the ports. As its
English name, Port Dinorwic, suggests, the little fishing
village of Felinheli (between Bangor and Caernarfon) was
developed into an important port for exporting Dinorwig Quarry
slate. In the beginning, the slates were carried in panniers on
horseback to Cei Llydan, on boats to Cwm-y-Glo and then on
wagons to Caernarfon and Felinheli. But it cost more to
transport the slate than it did to produce it — in 1778, for
example, it was more expensive to get the slates to Felinheli
that it was to take them from there all the way to Liverpool! In
1824 a horse tramway was built to connect the quarry and the
port. But by 1848-9, an even more effective way of transporting
the slates had been developed — the Padarn steam railway.
Engines Jennie Lind and Fire Queen were regularly to be seen
steaming back and forth to Penscoins, just above Feli