Have recently been able to make a reality, something for which I had hoped for several years -- getting into my possession, a copy of The Tal-y-Llyn Railway by J.I.C. Boyd (first publ. 1988); which I had read (library-borrowed) a couple of decades ago -- if the following does not sound too daft, I remembered it as fascinating, but recalled very little about it in any detail.
The book's topic is the history of the railway concerned, throughout the most-of-a-century of its pre-preservation life. It is plain that the author feels no animosity toward the Talyllyn Railway Preservation Society -- he was actively involved in the doings of this body, in the early years of the line's preservation -- simply, that the preserved railway rapidly came to be something radically different, from as per its previous state; things could not have gone otherwise. I've found Boyd's book to complement interestingly, L.T.C. Rolt's Railway Adventure (which I have long owned, and read a number of times) -- a complementing which is perhaps a little surprising; the book by Rolt, however, tells of the preservation society's first couple of years running the line, with less chance of setting-straight and re-equipping than they could ideally have wished: in Railway Adventure's recounted period, conditions had to remain mostly similar to those of the "old regime", and a good deal of the book tells of pre-1951 days, as necessary background to the '51-onwards scene.
Boyd's account -- 300-odd (large, copiously illustrated) pages (the Rolt book's page-count is half that) is as thorough and comprehensive as one is used to from this chronicler of the British narrow gauge. Ample in-depth coverage given, re the Talyllyn and its origins; historical ups-and-downs over the eighty-five years following from 1865; matters administrative; matters mechanical / rolling-stock / permanent-way; train operation; and a gallery of individuals involved, "from high to low", over the near-century. Copious coverage is also given to the Bryn Eglwys slate-quarry complex which was the railway's raison d'etre in the first place.
A thing which comes home to the reader via this book, is the Talyllyn and the Bryn Eglwys quarry -- fascinating as they were / are -- having been essentially a small-time operation compared with the more prominent "players" on the North Wales slate-quarrying scene. The Talyllyn (at any rate, west of Abergynolwyn station -- interesting complexities in the "inclines" department, beyond there) could be regarded as something like an early version of a "basic railway" -- one single-track line with no passing loops en route, limiting (with 1865 small-locomotive speeds) the possible number of workings each way per day: just two locos, and four passenger coaches -- these numbers never increased throughout the old regime's 85 years; line's function -- conveying slate, and local passenger, with any other traffic insignificant in quantity by comparison; operation throughout that era, on the "one engine in steam" plan (on big-traffic occasions, this was usually, slightly adapted into two separate trains, one closely following the other; this expedient generally preferred to double-heading). The railway's becoming -- probably un-imagined at its inception -- popular on an "excursion" basis with summer-holiday visitors from elsewhere in Britain: provided a boost in use of the line; recognisably, this phenomenon is ultimately what made possible, the line's survival to today. When the number of holidaymakers travelling, exceeded the capacity of the passenger stock; some of the numerous slate wagons were pressed into service to carry the extra "punters" -- a thing fraught with alarming possibilities, which happily never in fact "came home to roost".
The "old" Talyllyn had a strikingly casual attitude (luckily, never grievously "ending in tears") to various measures usually reckoned indisputably standard, by British public railways: Rolt mentions that it did not bother with public liability insurance, or the insuring of locomotive boilers. Boyd writes of Sir Henry Haydn Jones's -- implied, right from his taking over in 1911 of quarry and railway -- refraining from completing the Annual Returns to the Board of Trade, in theory obligatory for every public rail undertaking in the country: sundry statistics covering stock / equipment / work performed, plus certificate signed by the railway's Engineer re condition of rolling stock, and state of the permanent way. Boyd expresses some puzzlement as to "how come, and how he got away with it". Further historical info has come to light since the 1988 appearance of Boyd's book; strange and, to me, fascinating stuff -- I started a thread about it here, on "Railway History and Nostalgia" -- thread titled More about the "old Talyllyn"; in particular, re 1948 : OP 28 / 4 / 2021. There were some odd World War I doings on this scene, not told of in full by Boyd, but recounted by the amplified new source: it would appear that for an appreciable period early in the war, the quarry essentially ceased to operate (most of its staff had promptly volunteered for the armed forces), and all services on the railway were consequently suspended. The theory is put forward, that certainly then -- if not as soon as he had taken the reins three years earlier -- Sir Haydn ceased to submit his required Returns; and that assorted wartime chaos, plus other factors, meant that he was not "chased-up" to do this task, and that in consequence the Talyllyn Railway came to be largely forgotten about by officialdom -- this being suggested as one possible contributor to its perhaps slightly puzzling escape from nationalisation in 1948. Per the new source -- Sir Haydn's asking official bodies then, for their intentions nationalisation-wise concerning his railway: had an outraged Board of Trade high-up, more or less accusing this local magnate and pillar of his community, of virtually criminal behaviour in failing for several decades, to submit his Annual Returns.
Boyd -- as per above -- doesn't mention the according-to-other-source, early-WWI temporary closure; but he does tell of brief "services suspended" episodes over the period of Sir Haydn's regime -- to do with Sir H.'s tending-to-unharmonious relations with his workforce (quarry and, part-and-parcel-wise, railway). Though a Liberal Party stalwart, Sir H. had little sympathy for the struggle by the world's workers, for a better deal -- if his chaps tried to agitate for more money or a radical improvement in conditions -- or, horror of horrors, union membership -- he shut operations down and stopped paying them; before very many days or weeks had gone by, the lads fell back into line, and things were friendly-ish once more until the next time...
It couldn't be otherwise than Sir Henry Haydn Jones -- local businessman and Liberal MP for the local constituency from 1910 to 1945 -- featuring prominently in Boyd's book; given his rescuing in 1911, the Bryn Eglwys quarry and the Talyllyn Railway -- then on the edge of financial disaster -- by purchasing them from their former owners, who were looking to "get rid": in the interests of helping "his people" in the locality, by means of having jobs and services continue to exist. (As above -- "Lord Bountiful", not "Hero of Labour".) If this had not come about; presumably the Talyllyn would have perished ten years into the twentieth century, thus joining the considerable ranks of Britain's romantic but little-known "ghost lines". As things were; the four decades of Sir Haydn's regime encompassed a stage-by-stage decline of an undertaking which had probably at its outset been at best, only marginally viable. The quarry -- among other things, become positively dangerous to work -- closed for good in 1946: Sir Haydn nobly undertook to keep going as long as he lived (and he was as good as his word) the railway; which had over time, found a new role and use as an attraction for summer holidaymakers.
Boyd mentions at one point re Sir Haydn: "Over the years he was often heard to complain that he had provided his locality and tenants with a railway whose facility they did not appreciate or use, preferring the bus instead. He usually added that it was costing him £5 per week to continue to indulge them." If this were the case, it must -- for obvious reasons -- have set in some while post-1911; and some disharmony is seen here, with Rolt's telling in Railway Adventure of, in the early 1950s: a number of local folk -- especially among those living along the more westerly reaches of the line, further from the parallel main-ish roads and their bus service, than are Dolgoch and Abergynolwyn -- who used the train for their genuine travel needs; especially for their regular Friday "shop" in Tywyn. Rolt felt extremely "pro" these salt-of-the-earth types, and went to considerable lengths to be sure of giving them best possible service. Assuming that Rolt is being truthful and accurate here: one feels that Sir Haydn in his quoted utterance, was being decidedly churlish to this "faithful few". The picture is rather got, that while the eminent gentleman was, broadly, benign and caring; he was not, in life's ordinary dealings, an outstandingly nice person. Rolt remarks that in the locality, Sir Haydn was respected but not loved.
One irresistibly notices a basic contrast between the Ffestiniog Railway (also written about by Boyd, in depth and at length): enterprising, busy "mini-main-line" and "mini-big-business", to the point of being seen by some, as afflicted with delusions of grandeur; and the Talyllyn -- bucolic, almost hidden-away, highly laid-back railway byway of modest and restricted scope and purpose. This thing of being "polar opposites" has survived in perception and reality, to a considerable extent, into and during the preservation area. I personally have always greatly liked the Talyllyn; but various factors have caused my great love on the Welsh n/g scene, to have been the Ffestiniog -- my visits to the Talyllyn have, over a longish life, been very few. I am nonetheless with Messrs. Boyd, Rolt, and many others: in finding it a delight.
It’s a great recommendation as it is currently the best book on the subject that I’ve come across, but I was hoping someone may have been aware of more on the subject, perhaps written more recently. 
I’d already seen the paperback version before and it was a fairly decent book. But a lot of the text was just amplifying what should have been seen in the adjacent photo, so it didn’t read that well…
