#wales #steam #train
Having visited Devon in 2021 & 2023 on holiday with Rebecca's parents a change of scene was planned for 2024, and a visit to North-West Wales, Snowdonia, and a 10 night stay in Haven's Greenacres Holiday Park near Porthmadog. Rebecca's parents had never visited Wales and for me, aside from a couple of visits to the Llangollen Railway in the early 2010s, and an A Level Geography field trip to the Brechen Beacons in 2002, I had never had a holiday there either. This meant of course I had never visited any of famous Narrow Guage Railways in Wales, so staying 10 minutes from Porthmadog would give me an opportunity to do some filming on both the Ffestiniog Railway and the Welsh Highland Railway, who share Porthmadog's Harbour Station.
The Ffestiniog Railway runs from Porthmadog's Harbour Station up through the mountain to Blaenau Ffestiniog, a line founded by act of Parliament on 23rd May 1832 and is the oldest surviving railway company in the world. The objective was to provide an economical way of transporting slate from the mountains to the ships berthed at Porthmadog Harbour. The line was graded so loaded trains could run down using gravity, with horses pulling the wagobns back up. Horses later gave way to steam, and eventually the world famous Double Fairlie was created as a way of doubling the pulling power while still negotiating tight curves. Closed to passengers in 1939 and slate in 1946 the line was taken over by what became the Ffestiniog Railway Trust, re-opening in stages from 1955, reaching Blaenau Ffestiniog in 1982, not until after the famous deviation had been built at Dduallt to avoid the original route which had been flooded by a reservoir.
The Welsh Highland Railway was a short lived Narrow Guage Railway running from 1922 to 1937, running from a connection with the Afon Wen to Caernarvon line at Dinas to Porthmadog, which was re-opened in stages originally from Caernarvon to Dinas in 1997 along the route of the former standard guage line, through to Porthmadog Harbour in 2011, and eventually to a brand new cross platform interchange station opening in 2014.
The Ffestiniog & Welsh Highland Railways operate as two seperate routes under one company, running a series of named excursion trains either the full length of either route of various part-route options - although short journeys are available on the day. Becoming members of the Ffestiniog Railway allows you up to 10 free trips a year as part of your membership, an excellent deal we thought as it gave us options incase of wet weather, something that was to prove a good decision!
This video is a compilation of all my footage filmed across the 10 days of our holiday, edited in sequence of rough time of day and grouped by location. I was lucky enough to film almost all the services at some point or another, some cases where the same loco/train has been filmed its edited together to improve the sequence. We travelled three times, the Woodland Wanderer from Porthmadog-Tan-y-Bwlch on Sunday 4th & Sunday 11th and on the Mountain Spirit from Porthmadog-Blaenau Festiniog on Monday 5th August. We drove up to Tan-y-Bwlch on Thursday 8th for lunch which allowed some filming and had several lunches and two nice evening meals in Spooner' restaurant at Porthmadog two evenings which allowed more filming!
We had a lovely sunny day in Porthmadog on Saturday 3rd so I did a lot of filming around the station capturing the busy services where there was rairly a quiet moment. Footplate rides are provided on Saturday's so my son & I had a lovely trip in the cab around the station with Hugh Napier on the 3rd and 'Lillia' on the 10th. Over the course of our 10 days we only saw the sun on 4 days, plenty of rain, which did mean on a couple of occasions the others retreated to the caravan in the afternoon so I ventured out filming, to Minffordd Station on Monday 5th and to Minffordd and lineside around Penrhyndeudraeth on Thursday 8th. Finally a day trip to Caernarfon on Wednesday 7th allowed lunch in the new station and to film both departures that day plus an evening ECS moves to Dinas. A day at Portmerion and Pwllheli filled the rest of our time, a really glorious part of the world even when its raining!
Incredibly over the course of our 10 days we saw 11 steam locomotives in action, Hugh Napier & Lilla were in action on footplate rides (Lilla does not appear in this video). Porthmadog-Blaenau were Fairlies David Lloyd George & James Spooner with Blanche & Linda. NGG16 Garratt's no.87, 130 & 143 were in service with E190 Lyd and Fairlie Merddin Emrys on the Welsh Highland Line.
Photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/alts1985/albums/72177720319506257
Locations and Locos...
130, 190 & 138 at Caernarfon.
130, 8, 8 at Porthmadog.
87 at Porthmadog Crossing.
8, Blanche & David Lloyd George at Tan-y-Bwlch.
10, 130, Linda, 10 & 8 at Porthmadog.
David Lloyd George, James Spooner & Linda at Minffordd.
Linda at Penrhyndeudraeth.
87 at Porthmadog.