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Q1 2011 £3.50
Welsh Highland steams into Porthmadog
TLC In the top left hand corner of Wales...
It was 175
years ago today...
Wednesday April 20th, 1836, to be precise. Four
years after its enabling Act of Parliament, the
Ffestiniog Railway opened for business. It wasn’t a
flash opening ceremony—the company had very
little cash left after forging the route through the
mountains from Blaenau Ffestiniog to
Porthmadog—but it was a significant date for North
Wales in general and Porthmadog in particular.
Now, 175 years later, the Ffestiniog marks another
milestone in its illustrious history—the reopening
of the Welsh Highland Railway. And it’s not merely
a reopening. The new Welsh Highland is three
miles longer than its predecessor, completing the
link to Caernarfon that the original company
desperately wanted but never achieved.
Not only that, the new railway is built to a standard
that the 1923 company could only dream of, with
the world’s most powerful narrow gauge steam
locomotives hauling some of the most comfortable
passenger carriages on any heritage railway. It’s
taken 15 years and £28 million to get to where we
are today, but the railway isn’t finished.
There are still stations to complete, new carriages
and locomotives to build and the small matter of 80
miles of fences to maintain.
For the Welsh Highland takes the Ffestiniog
Railway into new territory. Operating 40 miles of
railway through the most spectacular and
challenging scenery in the UK takes a lot of work.
The Welsh Highland, at 25 miles, is the UK’s
longest heritage railway in its own right. Together
with the Ffestiniog, the World’s oldest independent
railway, it’s in a league of its own.
This souvenir magazine aims to give you a brief
glimpse of what a spectacular achievement the new
Welsh Highland is, together with some of the
people who worked behind the scenes to make it
possible.
We hope you will keep this magazine as a reminder
of the day the Welsh Highland Railway rose from
the ashes and finally achieved the dream of those
19th Century pioneers who strove to build a rail
link across Wales and linking the Menai Strait with
Cardigan Bay. We hope you will enjoy your journey.
Road to
Nowhere
It wasn’t the best of beginnings. When the Welsh
Highland opened in 1923, it didn’t actually reach
the quayside at Caernarfon, the obvious outlet for
slates from the quarries the railway was built to
serve. Instead, the line ended three miles short at
Dinas Junction, where both goods and passengers
were obliged to change onto the standard gauge line
running between Bangor and Afon Wen.
And a shortage of locomotives capable of running
reliable services that could keep to time meant that
all-too-frequently, connections were missed and
passengers found themselves stranded or forced to
finish their journeys by road at the company’s
expense.
For a railway already deep in debt, unnecessary
expenditure such as this could be ill-afforded. Few
locals used the railway as, unlike the rival bus
service, it failed to serve the very place most of
them wanted to go—Caernarfon.
Even with additional locomotives and carriages
borrowed from the Ffestiniog—which later took over
day to day running—the lengthy journey time in
carriages adequate enough for short journeys on
the FR, but completely unsuitable for use on a
railway of twice the length, was hardly an attractive
proposition for passengers.
Eventually the inevitable happened and the railway
closed in 1936, with most of the track lifted for
scrap during the second world war. It appeared
that the Welsh Highland story was over, but
appearances can often be deceptive…
Main picture: The FR’s Palmerston seen at Dinas
Junction in 1923 with a train about to depart for
Beddgelert.
Dawn is
a Feeling
Tracklaying on Phase 4—the final section of
the Welsh Highland between Rhyd Ddu and
Porthmadog—started in early 2006. The two
main track gangs—the North Wales Black
Hand Gang and the Rest of the World
Gang—worked on alternate weekends
relaying half the entire railway with over 12
miles of track, a task which was completed
in less than three years.
In one extended working week, the gangs
completed a mile of track. Had this rate been
maintained, Phase 4 would have been
completed in three months!
In this picture we see the scene in early
February 2008, looking towards Porthmadog
from the bridge over the Afon Dylif. Steel
sleepers have been laid out roughly in
position prior to the rails being dragged into
position. Notice the wooden sleepers in the
foreground. These are used in sensitive
locations in the National Park and as a
transition onto the larger bridges such as
Bryn y Felin, Afon Nanmor and Pont
Croesor.
Also note the early morning frost—a welcome
change to the rain, snow and blizzards
frequently experienced during construction.
The Final
Cut Tracklaying is not for the faint hearted. With
each 18 metre rail weighing over half a ton, the
work provides plenty of healthy exercise in the
fresh air.
Here, one of the track gangs cuts a rail to length
using a petrol-powered rail saw. The bridge in
the background is that over the Afon Nanmor, a
tributary of the Glaslyn, looking south towards
the site of Croesor Junction, where the tramway
which served the quarries of the Croesor valley
joined the original Welsh Highland.
This tramway—which predated the original
Welsh Highland -survived the closure of the WHR
and still saw an occasion Ffestiniog engine
collecting slate wagons until 1946 when the FR
itself closed.
Rebuilding a railway is no small task. Not only did the entire Welsh
Highland cost over £28 million to bring back to life, the statistics behind
where some of that money was spent make for some interesting reading:
15 road bridges
15 river bridges
13 stations
127 level crossings
300 culverts and drains
52,933 sleepers
4,411 rails
8,822 fishplates
70,578 nuts and bolts
80,000 rail clips
60,000 tons of ballast
500 active volunteers
70,000 man hours
This bridge plate just outside Caernarfon indicates an overbridge, 1.71
kilometres from the zero point at Caernarfon.
WHR chainage measurements start at 20 to avoid confusion with
distances on the Ffestiniog Railway and also to allow scope for any future
extension northwards to Bangor.
Walls and
Bridges
Ace of
Spades
Drains. Not the first thing people tend to think of
when they look at a railway. But they play a vital
role in keeping that expensive permanent way in
good condition.
The original North Wales Narrow Gauge Railway—
the forerunner of the Welsh Highland—was built as
cheaply as possible, meaning that drains were
given scant attention and in some cases ignored
altogether.
When it came to rebuilding the railway, a top
priority was to install proper drainage to protect
the ballast and track from the extremes of the
Welsh weather.
And once installed, those drains, ditches and
culverts need to be maintained and kept clear—yet
another opportunity for our team of seemingly
indefatigable volunteers to get cold and dirty, or
hot and sweaty…
Here we see the Rest of the World Gang working at
the site of Hafod y Llyn in 2008.
Fifteen years and £500,000 in the making,
replica Lynton & Barnstaple loco Lyd is, like its
illustrious precursors, Yeo, Taw, Exe, and Lew,
named after a Devon river with three characters.
The design is based on Lew, built in 1925, but
makes extensive use of new techniques, materials
and design concepts to produce a considerably-
more powerful loco than the originals.
As a result, Lyd is conservatively rated to haul five
carriages on the Welsh Highland and ten on the
less-steep Ffestiniog Railway.
Outshopped from Boston Lodge in August 2010
and currently running in black works livery, Lyd is
due to be repainted in authentic Southern Railway
green during 2011.
The loco has already visited to its spiritual home in
Devon, hauling special trains on the restored
section of the Lynton & Barnstaple Railway.
Back in
Black
Familiar
to Millions
The Jewel in the Crown? No less an authority
than the National Trust seems to think so.
In a poll of over a million members, the Aberglaslyn
Pass was voted the UK’s most beautiful spot.
The line runs along and above the eastern bank of
the Afon Glaslyn; the railway may appear to climb
away from the river but in fact the river drops away
from the railway, which is itself on a falling grade
heading south, as the gorge narrows towards its
southern end at Pont Aberglaslyn.
Before this point the railway turns away eastwards
through the longest of its four tunnels (T4 in
construction terminology), after two very short
tunnels in the Pass (T2 and T3).
During the years of closure, the trackbed, including
the three tunnels, became an unofficial footpath.
One of the many mitigation measures undertaken
during reconstruction was the construction of a
new footpath between the railway and the river.
With the opening of a new halt at Nantmor village,
walkers can now travel by train along the pass and
return on foot alongside the crystal clear waters of
the Glaslyn.
Crosstown
Traffic
One of the unique features of the Welsh Highland
is the tramway section carrying the railway through
the streets of Porthmadog.
The Cross Town Link extends from another
remarkable piece of engineering—the UK’s only
crossing of a main line and a narrow gauge railway
at Cae Pawb—to Harbour Station.
Using special tramway rail, the Welsh Highland
runs along the main road across Britannia Bridge
to reach its junction with the Ffestiniog Railway, as
did the FR track leading to the slate wharves back
in the 19th century.
Here, another fine example of 19th century
engineering, the Ffestiniog’s Double Fairlie Merddin
Emrys, built in the company’s own workshops in
1879, assisted by Single Fairlie Taliesin, built in
the same workshops in 1999, crosses Britannia
Bridge with a test train.
Into the
Valley
Almost two decades ago, a group of enthusiasts produced a poster inviting people to ‘make their dreams
come true’. In it, a bright red Garratt was seen steaming stylishly out of one of the tunnels in the
Aberglaslyn Pass, showing what a rebuilt Welsh Highland Railway could look like.
Today, thanks to their imagination, ingenuity and sheer hard work, the dream has indeed come true and
a bright red Garratt steaming stylishly through the Aberglaslyn Pass is fast becoming a familiar sight.
It all goes to show that, sometimes, it pays to dream...
Under the
Bridge
Down on the Traeth—the wide flatlands
recovered from the sea by the building of
the Cob embankment by William
Maddocks 200 years ago -livestock often
took refuge on the old trackbed in times of
flood after the original railway closed.
With the reopening of the railway, an
alternative was obviously required. The
solution devised by Welsh Highland
Construction engineers was the building of
the two ‘tin tunnels’ over the railway
providing a refuge for cattle and sheep in
the event of the Glaslyn bursting its
banks. Steel tubes were assembled on the
trackbed, covered with earth and faced
with stone. Today, after just a few short
years, the two bridges have already
blended into the landscape.
Down on the Traeth—the wide flatlands
recovered from the sea by the building of
the Cob embankment by William
Maddocks 200 years ago -livestock often
took refuge on the old trackbed in times of
flood after the original railway closed.
With the reopening of the railway, an
alternative was obviously required. The
solution devised by Welsh Highland
Construction engineers was the building of
the two ‘tin tunnels’ over the railway
providing a refuge for cattle and sheep in
the event of the Glaslyn bursting its
banks. Steel tubes were assembled on the
trackbed, covered with earth and faced
with stone. Today, after just a few short
years, the two bridges have already
blended into the landscape.
200
Years
Old
When William Maddocks completed the Cob in
1811, the town which today bears his name didn’t
exist. The waters of the Glaslyn, pent up behind his
mile-long embankment, surged out to sea when the
sluice gates were opened at low tide, scouring a
perfect deep water harbour around which the town
of Porthmadog was built.
The arrival of the Ffestiniog Railway in 1836
provided the ideal cargo for the new port and
shipyards sprang up building sailing ships to carry
Blaenau Ffestiniog slates around the world.
Ships arriving empty dumped their ballast outside
the harbour, forming an artificial island known as
Cei Ballast, which comprises rocks and other
materials from across Europe.
The railway provides the best vantage point for
what is often described as one of the best views in
the world—the panorama of Snowdonia reflected in
the tranquil waters of the Glaslyn.
Before the Cob was completed, the estuary was
tidal as far inland as the bridge over the end of the
Aberglaslyn Pass at Nantmor.
Today, sheep and cattle graze green pastures which
once lay beneath the waters of Cardigan Bay.
2011 marks the 200th anniversary of Maddocks’
achievement, a date to be marked by special events
throughout the year.
Taliesin is pictured on the Cob with a train heading
for the Welsh Highland Railway.
Most people imagine that narrow gauge railways
are run using small locomotives weighing just a few
tons. And for most narrow gauge railways, this is
indeed the case. Even the Ffestiniog’s famous
Double Fairlies weigh in at less than 25 tons.
But the Welsh Highland is a bit different. Some of
the steepest gradients to be found on any UK
railway, coupled with tight bends, make it almost
certainly Britain’s toughest railway.
In the early stages of planning the reconstruction of
the WHR, it soon became clear that this
extraordinary railway called for some extraordinary
motive power. Step forward the 62 ton NG/G16
Beyer Garratt—more powerful than many standard
gauge steam locos and capable of speeds of up to
50 miles an hour, although limited to 25 on the
Welsh Highland.
Each of the three NG/G16s currently in use has
been extensively rebuilt at the Ffestiniog’s Boston
Lodge Works, resulting in what are effectively brand
new engines, rebuilt at a cost of around half a
million pounds each.
Heavy
Metal
They are capable of hauling 12 carriages on the
Welsh Highland and would be able to haul 25 on
the Ffestiniog were they small enough to squeeze
themselves under the bridges.
Pictured above are number 138, resplendent in
Crimson Lake and 87 in Midnight Blue, running
round at Pont Croesor on the occasion of 138’s
return to service in 2010. In the background is the
distinctive peak of the ‘Welsh Matterhorn’, Cnicht.
This year, number 143, the third NG/G16 will
return to service following a major overhaul.
In late 2011 or early 2012, a fourth NG/G16,
number 109, will enter service. It is owned by pop
mogul Pete Waterman and is being rebuilt at his
LNWR loco works in Crewe for use on the WHR.
As befits Pete’s love of the London & North Western,
109 will appear in lined black livery.
The NG/G16s are the world’s most powerful two
foot gauge locomotives and, as such, pose a real
challenge for crews, not least because each trip ‘up
the hill’ means the fireman having to shovel a ton
and a half of coal into the firebox.
Just six years after the introduction of steam
locomotives, traffic had grown to the point where
doubling the track to increase capacity appeared to
be the only answer.
But Robert Fairlie, who had by now taken over
George England’s South London factory which had
supplied the original six locos, came up with a
solution so radical that it still forms the basis of
modern diesel and electric locomotive design
around the world today.
Fairlie’s idea was to equip the engine with a single
large boiler with two fireboxes and powered bogies
which could swivel to allow a much larger loco to
deliver more power and to negotiate much tighter
curves than would otherwise be possible, while
keeping axle loadings to a minimum.
Double
Vision
His first prototype, Little Wonder, was trialled on
the FR in 1869 and proved to be a revelation. A
second Double Fairlie, James Spooner, arrived in
1872 and in 1879, the FR’s first double engine built
in the railway’s own workshops, Merddin Emrys,
appeared and is still in regular use today.
Since then, the works has built three more Double
Fairlies, Livingston Thompson, now in the National
Railway Museum in York, Earl of Merioneth and
David Lloyd George. In 1999, the works completed a
replica of the Single Fairlie Taliesin.
The double engines form the principal motive power
on the Ffestiniog, being able to haul 12 carriage
trains with ease.
Merddin Emrys is pictured at Porthmadog Harbour
Station with a train for Blaenau Ffestiniog.
Magical
Mystery
Tour
We know quite a bit about climate change in
the top left hand corner of Wales, not least
because the climate changes roughly every five
minutes.
The microclimates spread across Snowdonia
often mean that you can stand in one place and
see rain, sunshine, clouds and blue skies simply
by turning your head. Travelling a couple of
miles often results in completely different
weather conditions.
Here at Rhyd Ddu we see an example—in the
background, the foothills of Snowdon are
shrouded in cloud. The train on the right of the
picture, headed for Caernarfon, is in shadow,
while Lyd is bathed in sunlight as it departs for
Beddgelert on the next stage of its meteorological
magical mystery tour.
Mountain
Climbing
Britain’s toughest railway. The 25 miles of the
Welsh Highland provides the ultimate challenge for
loco crews as the route climbs from sea level at
each end up to 650 feet near the foot of Snowdon.
And the toughest part is the six miles of one in forty
gradient between Bryn y Felin and Rhyd Ddu.
Not only is this the longest continuous gradient of
this severity in the UK, it also includes two double
reverse curves through the Beddgelert Forest.
To illustrate what this gradient means in real
terms, Beddgelert station platform is a staggering
six metres higher at one end than the other...
The wrong kind of snow? While the severe
weather at the end of 2010 brought much of Britain
to a standstill, Ffestiniog Railway services
continued almost as normal.
Only a handful of early morning trains were
cancelled as staff took works trains out into the
mountains to clear snow from the tracks and
remove icicles—some over ten feet long—from
bridges and tunnels, allowing the remaining trains
to run through a winter wonderland as scheduled.
Here Double Fairlie Earl of Merioneth rounds the
curve at Pen Cob heading for Tan y Bwlch on a
Santa Special in mid December.
Snow
Patrol
London
Calling
In 1863, the Ffestiniog Railway became the first
narrow gauge line in the world to run steam
locomotives. Such luminaries as George
Stephenson and Isambard Kingdom Brunel
expressed doubts that it could actually be done.
But George England’s workshop in South London
proved them wrong when the first two locos,
Princess and Mountaineer, arrived at Porthmadog,
having travelled from the station at Caernarfon by
horse and cart through the mountains.
Remarkably, four of the original six England
engines are still in existence today. Here Palmerston
and Prince, the two oldest steam locomotives in the
world still in regular operation on their original
railway, head a train over Penrhyn Crossing en
route for Blaenau Ffestiniog.
Sister locomotive Princess has pride of place in
Spooner’s Bar at Harbour Station and the youngest
of the four, Welsh Pony, is awaiting restoration by
engineers at Boston Lodge Works.
Blinded
by the
Light
Things to do before you die.
High up many railway enthusiasts’
lists is a ride on the Ffestiniog’s
legendary gravity slate trains.
When the line was built in the 1830s,
it was on a continuous gradient from
the quarries at Blaenau Ffestiniog to
the harbour at Porthmadog. Loaded
wagons ran downill with brakesmen
riding on top of the slates to keep the
train under control.
Once unloaded, the empty wagons
were hauled back to Blaenau by
horses and it was the excessive time
this took that led to the introduction
of steam locomotives.
Today, demonstration gravity trains
are still run on special occasions, but
regrettably, you can’t buy a ticket for
this unique experience as guests ride
by invitation only.
Here a gravity train emerges into the
daylight at the south end of Garnedd
Tunnel.
Past, present
and future
Boston Lodge Works is
the oldest working railway
workshop in the world and
the only one that can claim
to have manufactured
steam locomotives in three
different centuries, starting
in 1879 with Double
Fairlie Merddin Emrys—
still in regular use today.
Since then, the skilled
engineers have built four
more Fairlies and in 2010,
rolled out Lyd, a replica of
the iconic Manning Wardle
locomotives that once
worked the Lynton &
Barnstaple Railway in
North Devon.
The carriage shop also
manufactured almost all
the carriages for the
Ffestiniog and Welsh
Highland Railways and
also for other heritage
lines.
The works also undertakes
servicing, maintenance
and ground-up rebuilds,
including three massive
NG/G16 Garratts used by
the Welsh Highland—each
of which costs almost half
a million pounds to return
to as-new condition.
Here fireman Emily Fry
works on Blanche, built in
Leeds by Hunslet in 1893.
By
Appointment
April 27th 2010 was a special day for the
Ffestiniog and Welsh Highland as Her Majesty The
Queen and His Royal Highness The Duke of
Edinburgh rode in Pullman observation car 2100,
built by craftsmen at Boston Lodge Works in 2009
at a cost of almost £200,000.
At Dinas, the Queen graciously named the coach
Glaslyn after one of the major rivers on the route of
the Welsh Highland.
The carriage also visited London’s Olympia in 2010,
where it formed the centrepiece of the Welsh exhibit
at a major tourism trade show.
Today, for a small supplement, passengers can
experience the style and luxury of a bygone age
while enjoying the spectacular scenery of
Snowdonia through the carriage’s specially
constructed curved glass observation windows.
Helter Skelter
Often described as the world’s best
roller coaster ride, the Ffestiniog
still runs recreations of the gravity
slate trains for which the line was
built in the 19th Century.
Published April 2011 by Ffestiniog & Welsh Highland Railway, Harbour Station, Porthmadog, Gwynedd LL49 9NFPublished April 2011 by Ffestiniog & Welsh Highland Railway, Harbour Station, Porthmadog, Gwynedd LL49 9NF
Design & Edit: Andrew Thomas Pictures: Roger Dimmick, Chris Parry, Andrew ThomasDesign & Edit: Andrew Thomas Pictures: Roger Dimmick, Chris Parry, Andrew Thomas
www.festrail.co.ukwww.festrail.co.uk