PGH's photographs of British Railways from c1960

[The Stationmaster]

Very glad its in your collection!

Despite the date in the corner of the diagram (21/6/61) a photo dated 31/5/1963 in "Scenes from the past No9 The Llangollen Line, Ruabon to Barmouth" shows the signalling apparently unchanged since the last goods train ran to Blaenau Ffestiniog on 27/1/1961.

 

I have seen a photo showing the line severed as per your diagram but I can't (as usual) find it at the moment.

 

Regarding the signal 23 and the discs 20/21, in "Scenes from the past No25 Bala Junction to Blaenau Ffestiniog" a couple of photos dated Ca1958 show a wooden signal with a route indicator but by 1963 it had been replaced as shown.

 

And, as I have remarked, with the ground discs in a very unusual arrangement for the Western - in fact so unusual I have never come across it elsewhere on the Region in reality or photos.

[flyingsignalman]

Perhaps it was all they had in the spares box!

[The Stationmaster]

Perhaps it was all they had in the spares box!

 

I suspect that was the case at local level.  Reading still had the castings in stock for multiple arm discs almost to the day they closed so I reckon the Bala job would not have been done through them. 

[flapland]

Love the pictures in post 44 especially Middleton Station which is very close to where I was brought up and Middleton Junction East Box which reminds me of my spotting during lunch breaks from School.

[TheSignalEngineer]

I suspect that was the case at local level.  Reading still had the castings in stock for multiple arm discs almost to the day they closed so I reckon the Bala job would not have been done through them. 

I don't know about the Western, but there were certainly a few local creations around the LM. Some museum character was frothing about a bit of ironwork on a signal on my Grandad's patch when New Street PSB was about to take over, saying he'd not seen another like it. Grandad told him he wasn't likely to as in it's previous life it was holding up the cistern in the toilet.

[Joseph_Pestell]

In considering the slightly odd ground discs at Bala, could that be a consequence of the arrangement of the "double" track from there to the junction which was in fact a reversible line plus a goods line. I think that the right hand starter signal is protecting the goods line not a departure over the crossover to the reversible line.

 

Strange arrangement which I can only think was to allow a goods train to access the goods yard during times when the signal box was locked out.

 

Edited to add: Interesting to see the signal box diagram post blockade of the Blaenau route. How did locos run round? Perhaps all trains were propelled?

Edited December 18, 2013 by Joseph_Pestell

[PGH]

Bala to Blaenau Ffestiniog

I first travelled on this line about 1958 and with a school friend made several trips, sometimes stopping off at intermediate stations, until its closure to passengers in January 1960.  I think at times the two of us formed the majority of passengers on the single coach trains.  At that time my photographic skills were severely limited and in any case the main interest then was the experience rather than recording the scene for posterity - that came later.  So I can offer only two rather blurry images showing the trains, the remainder were mainly taken after rail services to Bala ceased.  The nuclear flask trains and enthusiast special trains from the Conwy Valley line to Trawsfynydd in later years may be covered later in this topic.

 

 

 

A Blaenau Ffestiniog train just west of Arenig Station c1959.  This illustrates the bleak nature of the countryside around Arenig.  The normal pannier tank and one coach passenger trains sometimes ran mixed at that time, as shown here, with a bulk cement wagon for the Tan-y-Grisiau Power Station construction contract.

 

 

 

On another occasion my regular travelling companion talks to the driver (or fireman ?) at Blaenau Ffestiniog Central Station.  Note the normal attire of this period for a schoolboy enthusiast - cap, mac (this was Blaenau Ffestiniog !) and school satchel over the shoulder for the sandwiches - this was pre the anorak era !

 

 

 

Blaenau Ffestiniog Central Station c1959, on a nice sunny day but alas without trains

 

 

 

Trawsfynydd Station c1959.  Unfortunately I managed to miss off probably the most interesting part of this scene - just visible on the left is the front of a pannier tank which was stabled with a coach in the lean to 'loco shed' extension on the goods shed.

 

 

 

Trawsfynydd Station in April 1962 after closure of the line, view towards Blaenau

 

 

 

From the same position looking the other way towards Bala

Edited January 11, 2016 by PGH

[PGH]

 

Llan Ffestiniog Station c1959, view towards Blaenau.  Everything still neat and tidy, present and correct.

 

 

 

The station building in 1962 after closure, everything still more or less intact but showing some signs of dereliction

 

 

 

The signal cabin in 1962

 

 

 

The goods shed with its slate cladding to the office walls

 

 

 

 

View back to the station, towards Bala, from opposite the goods shed.  The stones in the foreground indicate where the drainage from the cess enters a pipe culvert under the track.

 

 

 

Signal at the Blaenau end of the station

 

Edited January 11, 2016 by PGH

[PGH]

 

By 1978 most of the Llan Ffestiniog Station infrastructure was still intact although very derelict and the track had been reduced to a single through line, view towards Blaenau

 

 

 

The platform side of the station building.  The platform was 15ft wide in front of the building, comprising 13¹/₂" (x 6" wide) edging blocks with a chequered surface, a 6" strip of concrete (except on the ramps) and the rest in bricks with the courses transverse to the length of the platform.  The platform edge was approx 28" from the inside edge of the nearest rail and approx 34" above rail level.

 

 

 

The village (or sunny) side of the station building

 

 

 

The shelter on the up platform

 

 

 

View from the station towards Trawsfynydd

 

 

 

View from the station towards Blaenau.  Interesting for modellers to note that the station platforms were built with stone walls, the station building with blue bricks, the signal box with yellow bricks and the goods shed with red bricks.

 

 

 

The signal box with just the remains of its slate cladding on the end wall

 

 

 

The signal box was 17'-7¹/₂" long x 12'-2" wide over brickwork with its front face 6ft from the nearest rail

Edited January 11, 2016 by PGH

[PGH]

 

View of the station looking towards Trawsfynydd.  The signal box entrance stairway was on this side hidden by the tree.

 

 

 

View the other way towards Blaenau

 

 

 

The south (Bala) end of the goods shed, by now the office had lost much of its slate cladding

 

 

 

 

 

The north (Blaenau) end of the goods shed

 

 

 

View towards Blaenau from just beyond the road underbridge at the Bala end of the station

 

 

 

View of the underbridge for the Llan Ffestiniog to Trawsfynydd Road.

The sign on the right was for a garage behind the camera on the left side of the road.

 

 

Edited January 11, 2016 by PGH

[PGH]

 

Manod Station in September 1962 with its small bay windowed station building and slightly subsided ground frame cabin, view towards Bala.  The point led to the goods yard with two sidings.

 

 

 

Tan-y-Manod in May 2001.  Bottom right is the former transhipment platform for slate from the Craig Ddu Quarry and above it the site of the sidings, which led off the photo right to the loco shed and turntable.  Just left of centre and after the 'S' curve is the stone viaduct following which the line curves round to cross the road climbing the hill, on a level crossing.  On the mountainside in the left distance is the first incline of the former Rhiwbach Quarry Tramway; to the right on the skyline is a waste tip of the Llechwedd Quarry, the quarry itself being over the hill, and below that is the Votty and Bowydd Quarry waste tip; to the right again on the skyline is the Maenofferen Quarry waste tip and in front of that extending up the hillside to the right are the tips of the Diffwys Casson Quarry.

 

 

 

Tan-y-Manod Viaduct

 

 

 

View back towards Trawsfynydd from the level crossing.  On the distant hillside to the right is the course of one of the Craig Ddu Quarry inclines, dropping down to the exchange sidings at Tan-y-Manod.

 

 

 

After the level crossing the line passes under three road overbridges in Blaenau, the first having a cast girder with the inscription 'BRYMBO 1882'

 

 

 

View the other way, towards Central Station, from under the same bridge

 

 

 

The original Blaenau Ffestiniog Central Station building in 1960

 

 

 

Blaenau Ffestiniog Central in June 1963.  At that date work was underway to connect the North and Central Stations and the temporary buildings visible in the distance between the signal cabin and the station building were provided for the construction works.

Edited January 11, 2016 by PGH

[Oldddudders]

A marvellously informative set of pictures, thanks. I have only seen this line as a set of stark remaining features from the road - empty bridges etc against the sky. Your annotations to the pics really help, too.

[coachmann]

I hope I am not out of order with this update from 10 years ago, all taken on a beautiful Winter morning on 21st February 2003. The branch beyond the end of the track at Trawsfynedd Power Station can still be clearly traced and walked along. The sign in a field beyond Trawsfynedd village....

 

The trackbed looking from Trawsfynedd towards Cwm Prysor...

 

Cwm Prysor's sharply curved viaduct standing in memory to the Blaenau Festiniog-Bala branch....

Edited December 23, 2013 by coachmann

[Andy Y]

 

1.LF112B.jpg

 

A Blaenau Ffestiniog train just west of Arenig Station c1959.  This illustrates the bleak nature of the countryside around Arenig.  The normal pannier tank and one coach passenger trains sometimes ran mixed at that time, as shown here, with a bulk cement wagon for the Tan-y-Grisiau Power Station construction contract.

 

This latest batch of pictures are absolutely superb material; I don't think I've ever seen a shot with a Presflo as tail-traffic. It just looks so wrong it's brilliant!

[Judge Dread]

This latest batch of pictures are absolutely superb material; I don't think I've ever seen a shot with a Presflo as tail-traffic. It just looks so wrong it's brilliant!

"What carn't speak, carn't lie" as we say in this neck of the woods.

[PGH]

 

The trackbed looking from Trawsfynedd towards Cwm Prysor...

WEB Beyond Traws trackbed.jpg

 

 

I dismissed this photo as being of poor quality, but it does make an interesting comparison with Larry's photo of the trackbed beyond Trawsfynydd.

Taken in 1962 after closure of the line, the location is the same but a bit nearer to Trawsfynydd than the 2003 photo.

 

Edited January 11, 2016 by PGH

[Fat Controller]

This latest batch of pictures are absolutely superb material; I don't think I've ever seen a shot with a Presflo as tail-traffic. It just looks so wrong it's brilliant!

They did run as tail traffic on the Kyle line, I believe; as far as the oil-platform construction site at Stromeferry, but that was a couple of decades later. Definitely one to upset the 'experts', though..

[Metr0Land]

I love the pic of the 'mixed' in #94.  Mixed workings on (G)WR were very rare except poss for some of the unadvertised workman's trains which I think may have been mixed?

[Merfyn Jones]

This latest batch of pictures are absolutely superb material; I don't think I've ever seen a shot with a Presflo as tail-traffic. It just looks so wrong it's brilliant!

 

I gather that after closure the power station construction must have stepped up a gear, as cement traffic via the Conwy Valley line sometimes ran in block trains, during June 1961.

Merf.

[New Haven Neil]

If those photos don't start folk modelling I'll never know what will!  I feel like going out and buying a pannier......

 

Super, super photos, please keep them coming.

[The Stationmaster]

I love the pic of the 'mixed' in #94.  Mixed workings on (G)WR were very rare except poss for some of the unadvertised workman's trains which I think may have been mixed?

 

It is not a 'Mixed Train' but - as Andy correctly identified - a passenger train with tail traffic, albeit something rather different in the way of tail traffic!.  The easy way to tell that it isn't a mixed train at that date is that it hasn't got a freight brakevan on the back end

[Tim V]

The survival of equipment at Festiniog station was remarkable, I first saw the derelict station in the mid 70s, then in the 80s. When I last went there in the 90s, the fouling bar on the (removed) Up facing point was still there. Virtually everything else had gone.

[Fenman]

Such wonderful images.

 

A bit OT, but in response to an earlier post:

 

...

 

Marples (Con) - 1,436 miles closed.

Fraser (Lab)  - 819 miles closed

Castle (Lab) - 606 miles closed

Marsh (Lab) - 419 miles closed

Mulley (Lab) - 227 miles closed

Peyton (Con) - 90 miles closed

 

 

Note - Marples would have closed a lot before the Beeching report. But all the big ones S&D, GC, Waverley etc., were done under Labour. 

 

The first "big one" - the closure of almost the entire M&GN system - was in early 1959, pre-Beeching, and under a Conservative administration.

 

I think Gerry Fiennes was the railwayman enthusiastically doing the axing.

 

Paul

[Michael Delamar]

Thought this would be of interest. Blaenau Ffestiniog in 1962.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[unclebobkt]

  ... .

 Permanent way gangs still worked on the basis of their own 'patch' on which they not only tended the track but also looked after the lineside with - on the Western if not elsewhere - two burnings of lineside vegetation every year.  Hence a much tidier lineside, cess paths in generally good condition, and so on.  ... .

 

 -- How long, (miles),  or how big might an average 'patch' be?

  --  :-)

Edited December 24, 2013 by unclebobkt