Cwm Prysor - 'The Bala Branch'

[Covkid]

On 09/10/2022 at 10:09, Pteremy said:

There is a chapter about the flooding of the valley to make the reservoir in 'Shadowlands' by Matthew Green. (I bought it because there is also a chapter about Dunwich in Suffolk, which I was about to visit, but I thoroughly enjoyed the whole book.)

Did that book also mention "Cantre'r gwaelod" and "Clychau'r Aberdyfi ?  ?

Those were legends from the Tywyn area where there were reputed to be a hundred towns under the sea in Cardigan bay. Clychau'r Aberdyfi translates to the bells of Aberdyfi and referred to the legendary bells which rang out from under the bay.    

[St Enodoc]

40 minutes ago, Covkid said:

Did that book also mention "Cantre'r gwaelod" and "Clychau'r Aberdyfi ?  ?

Those were legends from the Tywyn area where there were reputed to be a hundred towns under the sea in Cardigan bay. Clychau'r Aberdyfi translates to the bells of Aberdyfi and referred to the legendary bells which rang out from under the bay.    

I had to learn "The Bells of Aberdovey" for Grade 1 piano nearly 60 years ago (I passed).

[geoff west]

Boxing Day trains running on Cwm Prysor. 

[geoff west]

The 6.06pm departure from Bala slows for the stop at Cwm Prysor and the crossing keeper, Mrs David Roberts, waits to greet any passengers who may alight. 

[geoff west]

Hi all,

Not sure if anyone is still following this thread as it's been a while since I've posted anything.

I've decided to sell Cwm Prysor as sadly I've lost interest in the project.

Anybody interested in taking it on please PM me.

 

Geoff.

[AdeMoore]

Yes still following shame but good luck on finding a new home.

where are you based?

[geoff west]

9 hours ago, AdeMoore said:

Yes still following shame but good luck on finding a new home.

where are you based?

It wasn’t an easy decision as I really found the history of the line fascinating. 
I’m based in Oxfordshire. 

[The White Rabbit]

I'm not uninterested but serious ill health means it's not on ... otherwise I'd have thought very hard about this. Fingers crossed you find a good home for it. 

[JZ]

Cwm Prysor will soon be on it's way to North Somerset. The deal is done with @geoff west. Planning to collect next Sunday.

 

This line has interested me since glimpsing the trackbed and viaduct on a holiday to N Wales in 1969. I have followed the building of the layout from it's early days. I do not plan any changes to it, apart from maybe a second set of station nameboards for Merkland Lodge, an equally remote location, with similar scenery, on the proposed line from Lairg to Laxford Bridge. And I might add an ID backscene.

Edited May 28, 2023 by JZ

[JZ]

I will also bring the closure of the line to the late 1960s. BR having accepted the offer of rerouting the line to avoid the reservoir at Llyn Celyn, and then becoming part of London Midland Region and motive power changing to Ivatt 2MT tank and 2-6-0, maybe the odd DMU, then finally class 24 once passenger services are withdrawn. This will enable me to run my rather eclectic variety of loco's.

[Tortuga]

Will you be keeping the this topic going? I remember Tom posting pictures of a blue Class 24 (?) he’d weathered for a customer on the layout, which looked rather good; I for one would like to see what happens under its new ownership!

[Covkid]

On 28/05/2023 at 15:18, JZ said:

I will also bring the closure of the line to the late 1960s. BR having accepted the offer of rerouting the line to avoid the reservoir at Llyn Celyn, and then becoming part of London Midland Region and motive power changing to Ivatt 2MT tank and 2-6-0, maybe the odd DMU, then finally class 24 once passenger services are withdrawn. This will enable me to run my rather eclectic variety of loco's.

 

Very much approve of that "what if" scenario.

[JZ]

Geoff West ahs decided to keep and expand the layout. I didn't have the room for this and will follow Goeff's endeavors.

[Tom F]

I've spent the day with a familiar looking layout...

 

Geoff has decided to extend Cwm Prysor. A month ago, @Dan Evason of Tunnel Lane Model Railway erected new extension baseboards, and today I made the first visit, commissioned to do the landscaping and scenery.

The first part, was the Welsh Hillsides heading off towards Arenig. Geoff and I have a few ideas which we are throwing around with regarding this area, and how to incorporate some visual interest.

Stay tuned....

 

[AdeMoore]

Watching with interest.

Geoff has brought together, two formidable modellers in Dan and Tom.

The outcome will with no doubt be stunning.

 

[Tortuga]

Glad I kept following this thread - nice to see Cwm Prysor progressing again.

 

That bridge in the distance of the first photo looks sort of familiar - is it the one by the preceding station, which (IIRC) you were intending to model before you decided to move on to Sudarian pastures?

 

(I had a quick look back through the last few pages, but the photos weren’t displaying)

[Tom F]

4 minutes ago, Tortuga said:

That bridge in the distance of the first photo looks sort of familiar - is it the one by the preceding station, which (IIRC) you were intending to model before you decided to move on to Sudarian pastures?

That's because the said bridge use to be on the layout 😉

 

 

5 minutes ago, Tortuga said:

(I had a quick look back through the last few pages, but the photos weren’t displaying)

They were unfortunately lost in the RMweb upgrade

This might help:



 

[Tortuga]

10 minutes ago, Tom F said:

That's because the said bridge use to be on the layout 😉

Ah, that’d be why!

Now moved further along the line, to more closely resemble its position in reality I assume?*
 

(*and therefore NOT the bridge at the end of the platform of the station I was thinking of - I really don’t know much about where Cwm Prysor fits along the line to (from?) Blaneu.

[The White Rabbit]

19 hours ago, Tortuga said:

.... I really don’t know much about where Cwm Prysor fits along the line to (from?) Blaenau.

 

Crudely, it's about half-way between BF and Bala. In railway miles, closer to Bala (perhaps about a 40/60 split?) because of the loop towards Trawsfynydd the railway took round [another] mynydd/big lump of rock.  https://lightmoor.co.uk/books/the-bala-branch/L8474 is - IMHO - an excellent reference work for anyone with more than a casual interest. Foxline also published one of their 'Scenes from the Past' titles on the line. 

[The Johnster]

Very roughly, the Blaenau branch from Bala Jc on the Oswestry-Dolgellau line, which runs along a route which, like much of Welsh geography, on a NE-SW alignment (see Caledonian Oregeny), runs westward along the valley of the Afon Treweryn.  This little river rises on the northern slopes of Arenig Fawr, 854m above sea level and an appreciable lump of topography.  The valley separates this from Arenig Fach, 689m, another prominence best avoided in bad weather, or good weather unless you are prepared for bad...  There is a pass, the Prysor, over which the railway trackbed and A4212 road run, past the bleak and remote Teigl Halt, (and you thought Cwm Prysor was a bit exposed!) to Trawsfynydd, a high village in the broad vale between the Arenigs and another range to the west, the Rhinogs, beyond which is the sea.  The branch turns northwards along this defile before passing through Trawsfynydd station and drops into Blaenau Ffestiniog, itself about 200m above sea level.  To the north is Moelwyn, a mountain familiar to anyone who has ever had anything to do with the Ffestiniog Railway, and to the south, completing the triangle, is Dolgellau, with Cadair Idris behind that.  It is usually raining, unless you can see the tops of the mountains, in which case it's about to rain...

 

The branch was closed after being flooded by the Llyn Celyn reservoir, which caused a good deal of political uproar in the area and acted as a recruiting campaign for Welsh  Nationalists, including some of the extremists.  When it was later proven to be a speculative moneyspinner for Liverpool council (Derek Hatton and that bunch of shysters), as it benefitted them to drain their own local reservoir and sell the land off profitably to housing developers in Lancashire by flooding a valley and a village in Merionethshire 60 miles away and piping the water, feelings in the area were understandably anything but assuaged, and one still sees 'Remember Treweryn' painted on rocks all over Wales 60 years later, bilingually of course.

 

This explains the appearance of Presflos on the model as tail traffic on passenger trains.  The branch's final years sas a massive demand for concrete in the area, and Presflos, not normally allowed as tail traffic and not having XP branding, were frequently attached to the trains for use on the dam, and the Trawsfynydd nuclear power station.  The northern stub of the branch between Blaenau and Trawsfynydd remained open to accommodate nuclear flask traffic for this power station's spent fuel until it's decommission in 1991.  Cement deliveries in Presflos were also brought up the branch for construction of the Llyn Trawsfynydd dam, part of the 1950s Maentwrog hydro-electric project and later the coolant reservoir for the power station.

 

The other big cement-devouring project in that part of the world was the Tan-y-Grisiau-Llyn Stwlan pumped storage scheme on the northern flank of Moelwyn, which flooded the Ffestiniog and neccessitated the construction of their deviation route, but TTBOMK cement for this was delivered via the Conwy Valley branch from Llandudno Jc, the surviving standard gauge route to Blaenau Ffestiniog.  The flask traffic used this to access the stub of the GW branch from the northern end.

[Tom F]

4 hours ago, The Johnster said:

The other big cement-devouring project in that part of the world was the Tan-y-Grisiau-Llyn Stwlan pumped storage scheme on the northern flank of Moelwyn, which flooded the Ffestiniog and neccessitated the construction of their deviation route, but TTBOMK cement for this was delivered via the Conwy Valley branch from Llandudno Jc, the surviving standard gauge route to Blaenau Ffestiniog.  The flask traffic used this to access the stub of the GW branch from the northern end.

Not quite correct, there are photos of presflos stored at Blaenau Ffestiniog GWR for the Stwlan Dam project, which suggests cement for Tanygrisiau also came in via the Bala Branch.

 

 

Also the Bala Branch came off the junction with the Ruabon-Dolgellau-Barmouth line, not Oswestry.

 

My friend Geoff Taylor is currently modelling Bala Town, Bala Junction and Trevor Stations.

Edited January 1 by Tom F

[branchie]

12 hours ago, The Johnster said:

 ... and one still sees 'Remember Treweryn' painted on rocks all over Wales 60 years later, bilingually of course.

No, that's not quite right.  The paintings are in Welsh, not bilingual.

Edited January 1 by branchie