Three rings, and home. My word, that was an outstanding little expedition. There are 160+ photos of it all, so rather than post them all I'll just add a link to my Photobucket account*
(*other photo sharing sites are available.)
We visited three narrow gauge railways, clocked up a grand total of 80 miles travelled behind various steam locomotives and spent nine hours on trains (and that doesn't include the ten hours I spent getting there and back on the national network).
On the Saturday we travelled from Portmadog on the Welsh Highland Railway, for a little over 25 miles through Snowdonia to Caernarfon. The original railway was opened in stages between 1881 and 1922, spending a few years in between in a moribund condition, being re-routed at least once and regauged before opening throughout. By that time the industries it was built to serve were in decline and the summer tourist traffic was firmly in the hands of motor busses. It only carried passengers for ten years, and closed to all traffic in 1942. It then lay half-forgotten until the late 1990s, when a determined effort saw it rebuilt in stages back to Porthmadog, which was reached a few years ago.
It is a beautiful line. From Porthmadog it runs up the Abergynolwyn pass, with a ruling gradient of 1 in 50 and in places of 1 in 40. This is difficult terrain to walk through, let alone run a train, and it is easy to see why the preserved line uses powerful 2-6-2-2-6-2 garrett locomotives repatriated from South Africa- the original line used locomotives from the Ffestiniog Railway and I cannot imagine how they coped, although granted traffic loads were so light back then that trains ran to only two carriages and a brake van.
Once out of the pass the line runs through the foothills of Snowdonia, skirting around Snowdon itself. The scenery is bleak and awe-inspiring here as the train is surrounded on all sides by almost impassable terrain.
The line then drops into a valley and runs down a long but gentle gradient to Dinas, the terminus of the original route. Here are the loco workshops for the railway, where a third South African locomotive (an NG15 2-8-2) is being restored. From Dinas the route follows the former London & North Western Railway standard gauge route into Caernarfon, terminating yards from Caernarfon Castle.
The train takes two and a half hours to make the trip in each direction and spends a little over an hour in Caernarfon. Personally I found the day hard going; it's a round trip of six and a half hours at least and by about the five hour mark I was, not exactly bored, but worn out and wanting to be back in Porthmadog. Not a reflection upon the Railway in the slightest this, just the limitations of my endurance.
So; onto Sunday. This time we went to Blaenau Ffestiniog via the Ffestiniog Railway. This is a shorter railway (13 miles) with a correspondingly shorter ride (an hour and a quarter each way), but is no less impressive. From Porthmadog the line first runs along a sea wall, then makes a 90-degree turn to run inland and up the valley.
The gradients and the turns one this route are as fierce as on the Welsh Highland, and the train is constantly groaning and shrieking as the wheels squeel against the rails on the curves. From Porthmadog as far as Ddault the line is exceptionally picturesque, and runs on almost a sheer ledge. On one side, a cliff face. On the other, a straight drop down anything from 50 to 200 feet (I would estimate). The Ffestiniog, on special occasions, runs an original slate train through from Blaenau Ffestiniog to Porthmadog- the original operation of the route being to use gravity to pull the loaded wagons down to the port and horses to pull the empties back up. I have always wanted to ride what they term the 'Gravity train', but having seen the terrain the line runs through that ambition has been sorely checked!
When the line reaches Ddault there is perhaps the most impressive feat of civil engineering yet accomplished on a preserved railway. By the time the preservationists reached this point, in the mid-1960s, the trackbed of the original route had been lost. A hydro-electric power station had been built, and its reservoir had flooded the trackbed. As a result, the line now makes a 360-degree turn on leaving Ddault, climbing a fierce gradient and crossing over itself, then running through a cutting and tunnel blasted out of rock to pick up the original route again a mile or so further toward Blaenau Ffestiniog. Much of the original line can still be traced from the train; from Ddault the line first ran on an earth embankment (still extant), then on a stone escarpment (still extant) and into a tunnel (still extant). I was expecting from this point on to find the route obliterated, but instead the reservoir was almost drained and so I was able to see the (usually flooded out) tunnel and trackbed almost to the point where the new track rejoins it.
From Ddault onwards the scenery becomes more industrial; heaps of slate and abandoned quarries are visible as the train runs along the back streets of Blaenau Ffestiniog. It comes to an end at the site of the former Great Western Railway station; there is an interchange with the Conwy Valley Line, which also terminates here.
We had planned to stay a few hours in Blaenau Ffestiniog, but as the weather was inclement we instead decided to go back to Porthmadog on the train we came up on. This gave us an extra few hours in Portmadog to visit the third preserved railway in the town, the Welsh Highland Heritage Railway.
Boring bit of railway preservation politics here. When the first serious efforts were made to rescue the Welsh Highland in the 1960s, a preservation group was formed which tracked down, bought and restored the original stock of the railway. Whilst doing this it bought a short stretch of the old line in Portmadog from which to act as a base whilst it raised funds to buy more of the trackbed and extend the line further. Meanwhile the Ffestiniog Railway completed its project to rebuild from Porthmadog to Blaenau Ffestiniog. What happened next is boring, rooted in legality and the courts. The upshot is however that the Ffestinog Railway bought the entire trackbed of the Welsh Highland and announced that they would rebuild the line themselves, working down to Porthmadog from Caernarfon. (In effect, the original preservation society had been gazumped). An arrangement has happily since been reached that the Ffestiniog operate the Welsh Highland using new rolling stock whilst the original preservation group have rebuilt a short branch off of it and run the original WHR rolling stock. The two meet at a junction just outside town, so there is still the opportunity to run original WHR trains along the new line.
What it lacks in length (it is only a mile long) it more than makes up for in character. There is a very interesting museum and workshop halfway along the line and on gala days (such as there was over the weekend) an impressive timetable of passenger and demonstration freight trains.
Would I do it again? Yes, whole heartedly. I would probably make a few changes to the itinery (I would take the WHR only as far as Snowdon Ranger, and the Ffestiniog only to Ddault, and I would then spend more time exploring the walks you can access from the lines).
Photos are still uploading to Photobucket* (*see caveat above) so I'll post the link to the gallery there as soon as I can.
