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