Thursday, 10th October 2019 The final full day of the tour takes us to the Welsh Highland Railway. The coach drove a very scenic route through the centre of the Snowdonia National Park. Unfortunately, Snowdon itself was hidden in clouds today. The coach dropped us in the village of Beddgelert. It is a pretty Welsh stone built village, which has won “Britain in Bloom” competitions. It has also been described as “a wondrous valley”. Gelert was the name of a dog that belonged to Prince Llewellyn. The Prince returned from hunting one day to find the dog with blood around its mouth and his son missing. Believing that the hound had killed the boy, Llewellyn slew it. However, the child was found alive and a dead wolf was discovered nearby. The dog Gelert had saved the boy from the wolf. Llewellyn was filled with remorse and allegedly never smiled again. The legend was embellished in the nineteenth century by the landlord of the Goat Hotel. It is possible to visit “Gelert’s grave”. The train is hauled by a South African Railways narrow gauge Garratt. This is a huge 2-6-2 + 2-6-2 locomotive. The demise in 1936 and the eventual reconstruction of the Welsh Highland Railway had been a long, tortuous and of highly legal progress such that it is too long to relate here. There were legal cases, liquidations, funding issues, public inquiries and political intrigues. However there was above all else a determination to reconstruct the railway and extend […]
Wales
Wednesday, 9th October 2019 Norman, the coach driver, collects us at 08:45 and we are on our way to the railway station at Llangollen. The journey takes an hour and a quarter. The Llangollen railway is the longest preserved standard gauge steam Railway in Wales now at 12.5 miles long. Work has been undertaken to extend it from 10 miles at Carrog to 12.5 miles near Corwen. Our train terminated at Carrog, and we had a 40 minute wait at the station before our return trip to Llangollen. This allowed time for coffee and a comfort break. The railway was originally opened in 1862 to serve the mining industry. It closed in 1964 and restoration commenced in 1975. The line as far as Carrog was opened in 1996 and work on the extension to Corwen started in 2011. Back at Llangollen there was a hour to have some lunch and to walk around the town. Llangollen is an attractive town on the River Dee and its bridge from 1345 (renovated in 1960) used to be on the London -Holyhead horse drawn coaching route improved by Thomas Telford in 1815. The canal was built in 1806 and was one of Britain’ finest feats of canal engineering. It was designed by Thomas Telford to transport slates from the quarries on the Horseshoe Pass and to provide water for the Shropshire Union canal. The water is fed from the Horseshoe Falls via a very small opening controlling the flow in the pump […]
Tuesday, 8th October 2019 Today, on this tour, is what is called a free day when the tourees are at liberty to explore on their own. So from 09:00 to 10:00 I establish myself in the hotel reception with two big boxes of pocket guidebooks and local leaflets. Before heading out for the day myself I make suggestions, point places out on maps and generally assist the tourees in deciding what they want to do for the day. From 10:00 I am free to head off and experience some of the highlights of Llandudno. So after leaving the hotel I discover . . . . . . Llandudno is the largest seaside resort in Wales, and in my view, has not lost its charm like so many seaside resorts throughout the UK. One of the most famous residents of the town was Alice Liddell (of Alice in Wonderland fame), so as I walk through the town I pass statues of characters from the books. These are part of the Alice in Wonderland Town Trail. The target of my walk was Victoria Station, the start of the Great Orme Tramway. The Great Orme Tramway is Britain’s only cable-hauled tramway which travels on public roads. It opened in 1902. It adheres to the funicular principle where the trams are permanently fixed to the cable and are made to move by stopping and starting the cable. The tramway is split into two parts. In the first part the cables are under the road. […]
Sunday, 6th October 2019 Today starts a new tour: Rail Discoveries’ Railways of Wales. This is based in one hotel in Llandudno. As is similar to most UK based tours I meet the tourees on the first day at 16:00 in the hotel. This means that they can choose their method of travel to the venue, most will have chosen to drive. I, however, travel by train. Bromley South to Victoria, then tube to Euston. From Euston it is a train to Llandudno Junction. Unfortunately, on a weekend, there are no trains that go to Llandudno Station which is more central. This means traveling by taxi from Llandudno Junction to the hotel on the Promenade. When I tell the taxi driver the name of the hotel where I am staying he duly replies with “I can’t take you there, there is a car rally going on”. “Oh” I reply, “Get me as close as I you can”. As we are driving along I get out Google Maps on my phone and suggest the odd route alteration to the driver. He says to me in a quite astonished voice, “How have you got the new car satellite thing on a phone?” Arriving at the back of the hotel he says “Wow, I didn’t know that you could go that way”. “Just download the Google Maps app on you phone” I reply. “I’d have to get a phone first,” he says. True enough outside my hotel is the finish of the Wales […]