Railways and Preservation - Swanage An Environmental Disaster?

[caradoc]

I have visited Porthmadog twice with my children, once via the FR and once via the WHR. On both occasions we had lunch in the town, and spent money in shops (and not just on railway stuff at Porthmadog station !). On the first occasion we were on holiday in Prestatyn and on the second occasion in Llandudno; Had it not been the train journeys we simply would not have gone to Porthmadog at all. 

 

[Zomboid]

The first time I went to Porthmadog it was similar, we were having a holiday in Betwys-y-Coed, and went for a ride on the FR. We had lunch and bought some tat in Porthmadog.

 

If the train had gone to Harlech then we'd have bought lunch and tat there instead. If the train hadn't existed at all then we'd probably have climbed Siabod or something, but actually the selection of trains was part of the reason why we had a holiday in Snowdonia at all.

[caradoc]

Apologies in advance to anyone from Porthmadog, but without the two narrow gauge railways, is there really much there to attract tourists ?

 

(And the same could perhaps be said for other places, such as Kidderminster or Loughborough.....)

 

[Northmoor]

2 minutes ago, caradoc said:

Apologies in advance to anyone from Porthmadog, but without the two narrow gauge railways, is there really much there to attract tourists ?

 

(And the same could perhaps be said for other places, such as Kidderminster or Loughborough.....)

 

Well, the beaches, the mountains and Portmeirion village are all on your doorstep......

[Zomboid]

Portmeirion is well worth it (I got married there, so might not be wholly unbiased). There's also three narrow gauge railways - presumably you forgot the WHHR.

 

Borth y Gest and Cricieth are both nice. I suppose none of those are actually in Porthmadog, but that's the way with Snowdonia, it's more about the wider surroundings than the actual places themselves.

 

There's probably less to detain you in Blaenau Ffestiniog. The Zip wires and slate caverns are about all I can think of.

[caradoc]

32 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

Well, the beaches, the mountains and Portmeirion village are all on your doorstep......

 

True, of course, but they can be experienced without having to visit Porthmadog ! I can only say that without riding the FR and WHR I doubt I would ever have visited the town.

 

[papagolfjuliet]

54 minutes ago, caradoc said:

Apologies in advance to anyone from Porthmadog, but without the two narrow gauge railways, is there really much there to attract tourists ?

 

 

I've heard the pre-FfR revival Porthmadog described as 'A graveyard with streetlights.' It's a very well set up town, but without the three railways I doubt whether it would be the tourism hub it has become. I offer you the example of Denbigh, which is much handier for some major English conurbations and is one of the UK's finest mediaeval walled towns, but which has next to no tourist industry. Even on a nice day in midsummer the number of grockles in Denbigh can usually be counted on the fingers of one offensive gesture.

[Northmoor]

Since this thread was meant to talk specifically about an issue affecting the Swanage Railway and is now talking about railway preservation in general (I'm one of the most guilty in taking it off topic), feel free to make general observations about the impact of the current economic situation on the thread I started last year:

 

The discussion on the thread around the Llangollen's situation is also going off topic, at least partly down to me.....

[Reorte]

Well we're moving on to Welsh narrow gauge, putting together a plan to tour them has been something I've been intending to do for a few years - is it practical to do the whole thing by train? (there's plenty of full size trains there I wouldn't mind a trip on too, e.g. the Conwy Valley line).

Edited March 5, 2021 by Reorte

[Ben B]

1 hour ago, Reorte said:

Well we're moving on to Welsh narrow gauge, putting together a plan to tour them has been something I've been intending to do for a few years - is it practical to do the whole thing by train? (there's plenty of full size trains there I wouldn't mind a trip on too, e.g. the Conwy Valley line).

 

If you can travel on the one or two months of the year when the Conwy Valley line isn't underwater, actually washed away, closed by rockslides, or just plain old substituted for a bus because the operating company have decided the Sprinter unit would be of more value in the South Wales Valleys instead

 

Sorry, that's a bit flippant.  But apart from the various calamities that regularly close the Conwy Valley, it's worth noting the Cambrian too is apparently having a lot of engineering closures the next few years for work on Barmouth Viaduct and some of the other timber structures, so best to really plan ahead.  In years gone by they'd sometimes have a unit or two isolated and fuelled/serviced from the terminus end, but these days they seem to prefer replacement buses.  I did this once, a replacement bus from Machynllth to Barmouth at short notice due to a driver shortage, and because of the winding route (especially to get inland to cross the river at Dolgellau), roadworks, and traffic jams, it took as long to do this leg as it had done to get from Wolverhampton to Machynllth (lovely day trip to the beach that, spent more time on a train than the sand).  Also worth bearing in mind tight connection times, problems with the ERTMS signalling system caused some lengthy delays when I used the line a few years ago.

 

It is do-able, and there did used to be some kind of combined ticket as well I think.  But not sure how it works with Covid, I don't know if the Ffestiniog is even heading for Blanau this year, they certainly didn't run beyond Tanybwlch for the majority of last year.

[Reorte]

23 minutes ago, Ben B said:

It is do-able, and there did used to be some kind of combined ticket as well I think.  But not sure how it works with Covid, I don't know if the Ffestiniog is even heading for Blanau this year, they certainly didn't run beyond Tanybwlch for the majority of last year.

On that part at least I'm not planning on doing anything until Covid's history.

[Ben B]

3 minutes ago, Reorte said:

On that part at least I'm not planning on doing anything until Covid's history.

 

Fair enough, be something to look forward to

 

Just stopping somewhere on the Cambrian Coast gives you the Rheidol, Tallylyn, Fairborne, Ffestiniog, WHR, WHHR with easy access to mainline stations.  And if you do the local buses, Corris, Llanberis Lake (and slate museum), Snowdon Mountain and Bala, as well as Betws-y-coed for the museum. Plenty to see and do

[Zomboid]

Welshpool has a main line station too. And there's the miniature railway in Rhyl. Not sure how you'd get to the Brecon railway, but it's not in the middle of nowhere so public transport is probably viable.

[009 micro modeller]

30 minutes ago, Ben B said:

And if you do the local buses, Corris, Llanberis Lake (and slate museum), Snowdon Mountain and Bala, as well as Betws-y-coed for the museum.

 

If the Conwy Valley line is working, the museum at Betws-y-Coed is actually in the station. The Great Orme Tramway is also interesting.

 

16 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

Not sure how you'd get to the Brecon railway, but it's not in the middle of nowhere so public transport is probably viable.

 

I expect there’s a bus from Merthyr but not sure how viable this would be. I’d also be interested in any information about visiting the Brecon line by public transport for future reference - despite having previously visited the area a few times I haven’t climbed Pen-y-Fan yet, and managed to visit the BMR the year before the extension opened so would like to go back now it’s open all the way up, and hopefully climb the mountain at the same time.

[Northmoor]

1 minute ago, 009 micro modeller said:

I haven’t climbed Pen-y-Fan yet, and managed to visit the BMR the year before the extension opened so would like to go back now it’s open all the way up, and hopefully climb the mountain at the same time.

On some days during Lockdown it seemed half of South Wales needed to go up Pen-y-Fan for their daily exercise, so just wait for the next Lockdown and thumb a lift from somewhere near the M4.

[Ben B]

25 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

Welshpool has a main line station too. And there's the miniature railway in Rhyl. Not sure how you'd get to the Brecon railway, but it's not in the middle of nowhere so public transport is probably viable.

 

I always forget Welshpool in terms of being accessible from the mainline, I think it's probably the walk through the town (and the way the road network divorces the standard gauge from the town in the classic bypass/ring-road fashion of the times).  Such a shame the street-running section couldn't have been saved, though I can understand why.

 

Quote

If the Conwy Valley line is working, the museum at Betws-y-Coed is actually in the station. The Great Orme Tramway is also interesting.

 

Again, despite it being somewhere we visit quite a lot, I tend to overlook the mainline connection, probably because I've rarely been able to visit the last few years when the mainline has been functional.  It's an interesting set-up there at Betws-y-Coed.  I've never managed to do the Great Orme, is it any good?

 

There's also some interesting locomotives at Penrhyn Castle (National Trust), bus from Bangor.  The locomotives are a little hard to photograph, but at least they're safely indoors away from the effects of the weather.

[Zomboid]

1 hour ago, Ben B said:

I've never managed to do the Great Orme, is it any good?

The Great Orme is nice enough (there's a tacky restaurant/gift shop at the top, but it is a nice piece of landscape). The tramway is a nice enough way to get up or down to/from it (there's also a chairlift if you fancy going the other way on that), but you need to have something else in planned to do in the area, it's not something you'll sit on all day. 

[caradoc]

The Great Orme cable tram is well worth doing, although I agree the top end facilities are rather tacky; However many years ago I did manage to well and truly defeat my children on the crazy golf course there (they were quite small at the time). There is also an interesting display of natural history at the tram terminus. The weather is a major factor up there, last time I was there (September 2019) the rain was horizontal, so our visit was curtailed......

 

[ardbealach]

Don't forget there is the Round Robin ticket which allows a full day circuit from, I think, any railway station on the circuit.  i.e. Chester - Shrewsbury - Mach - Cambrian Coast - Porthmadog - FR to Blaenau - Conwy Valley - Llandudno and back along N.Wales coast line to Chester.

 

Hopefully it will be available this year.  (Alisdair)

[009 micro modeller]

5 hours ago, Ben B said:

It's an interesting set-up there at Betws-y-Coed.

 

For me, the currently non-operational nature of the 15” gauge electric line might make me less likely to visit Betws-y-Coed if in the area - but I would probably still visit to see the museum contents. 

 

5 hours ago, Ben B said:

I've never managed to do the Great Orme, is it any good?

 

It’s an interesting, historic and I think pretty much unique line (a street funicular on its lower half) with some good scenery as well, especially on the upper section. I did enjoy the summit as I visited in good weather and was able to stroll around the top for a bit (on a relatively flat, easy route). I didn’t really go into the summit buildings. On the other hand, I spoke to somebody who visited in appallingly wet weather and they got to the summit and then came straight back down again so I think that makes a lot of difference. I suppose it’s a bit like Snowdon in that respect, only with open-sided (less weatherproof) carriages.

 

On the subject of the chairlift, I don’t know how well it would work going one way on that and the other way on the tramway. Is there any kind of joint ticketing? Nearby is a prehistoric copper mine museum.

 

 

[phil_sutters]

22 hours ago, 009 micro modeller said:

 

For me, the currently non-operational nature of the 15” gauge electric line might make me less likely to visit Betws-y-Coed if in the area - but I would probably still visit to see the museum contents. 

 

 

It’s an interesting, historic and I think pretty much unique line (a street funicular on its lower half) with some good scenery as well, especially on the upper section. I did enjoy the summit as I visited in good weather and was able to stroll around the top for a bit (on a relatively flat, easy route). I didn’t really go into the summit buildings. On the other hand, I spoke to somebody who visited in appallingly wet weather and they got to the summit and then came straight back down again so I think that makes a lot of difference. I suppose it’s a bit like Snowdon in that respect, only with open-sided (less weatherproof) carriages.

 

On the subject of the chairlift, I don’t know how well it would work going one way on that and the other way on the tramway. Is there any kind of joint ticketing? Nearby is a prehistoric copper mine museum.

 

 

The Cable Car site says that their tickets are not transferrable to the Tramway. Their tickets are £10.50. The Tramway's ones were £8.10 return, but with the tramway closed last year, they don't seem to have updated their site for 2021 yet.

The two modes of transport can be seen in their picturesque environment above Llandudno, in this rather grainy photo from 1992.

 

Edited March 6, 2021 by phil_sutters

[caradoc]

On the three occasions I've been to Great Orme we went up by the tram and intended to return by the cable car, however it was not running (and even after staying in Llandudno for 4 days in 2019 I have still never seen it operating).

 

[papagolfjuliet]

On 05/03/2021 at 13:50, Ben B said:

 

There's also some interesting locomotives at Penrhyn Castle (National Trust), bus from Bangor.  The locomotives are a little hard to photograph, but at least they're safely indoors away from the effects of the weather.

 

Catch it while you can. The National Trust is currently carrying out a 'review' of the railway museum, which will probably end with all the engines except 'Fire Queen' and 'Charles' moving elsewhere. Always assuming of course that they can get them out.

[Ben B]

14 minutes ago, papagolfjuliet said:

 

Catch it while you can. The National Trust is currently carrying out a 'review' of the railway museum, which will probably end with all the engines except 'Fire Queen' and 'Charles' moving elsewhere. Always assuming of course that they can get them out.

 

Doesn't surprise me. The age of cost cutting... though cannot imagine the locomotives cost much upkeep-wise.

 

I'll have the saloon carriage thats behind Charles, I'd like a summerhouse

[papagolfjuliet]

On 07/03/2021 at 20:34, Ben B said:

 

Doesn't surprise me. The age of cost cutting... though cannot imagine the locomotives cost much upkeep-wise.

 

I'll have the saloon carriage thats behind Charles, I'd like a summerhouse

 

Anything of Penrhyn origin is likely to stay put, but I'd expect Vesta and Haydock and Beckton No.1 and Hawarden and Kettering Furnaces No.3 to move elsewhere.