Welsh Highland Railway

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This was one of a series of articles about the Welsh Highland Ry It appeared in the February, 2010 issue. A Brand New Narrow Gauge RR ... Sort Of I know that you have been lying awake at night, tossing and turning and crying out, “Why? Why can't I st ride a two foot gauge vintage steam train across Wales?” This being the 21 century, if you want practically anything, especially it it's expensive and yet of no practical use, someone is ready to sell it to you. Case in point: the crazy dedicated people who have been keeping the Ffestiniog Railway running in Wales. As if that weren't a full time job, they have spent the last 27 years rebuilding an adjoining two foot railroad that they call the Rheilffordd Eryri. But to keep my spell checker from quitting in protest, we'll refer to it by it English name, the Welsh Highland Railway. As of now, all the track has been laid, but they still have to finish ballasting, installing signals and traffic controls, and hiring and training crews. That is scheduled to take all of 2010. When completed in 2011, you will be able to ride the WHR from Caernarfon, which is on the coast, but pretty much out in the middle of nowhere, across a wedge shaped bit of Wales to Porthmadog which is on another part of the coast. There you can transfer to the Ffestiniog and continue on to the slate mining town of Blaenau Ffestiniog, which really is out in the middle of nowhere. The engines they will use are advertised as “the most powerful two foot gauge steam locomotives in the world” which would appear to be a pretty safe statement, as would “just about the only two foot gauge steam locomotives in the world.” They are Beyer-Garratt 2-6-2 + 2-6-2's, 48 feet long, and 62 tons. They are very possibly the biggest and most powerful 2 foot gauge steam engines ever built. From December, 2010. What The Big (or Bigger, Anyway) Roads Are Up To Rheilffordd Eryri / Welsh Highland Ry The Welsh Highland Ry has been completed, and is now running test trains along the entire 25 mile route. The first commercial run will be February 19, 2011, so mark your calendars. If you have ever dreamed about riding from nowhere, to nowhere behind a vintage two foot gauge Beyer-Garratt, your dream is almost a reality. I first wrote about this brand new old railroad in the February, 2010 issue. Since then the crew has been busy installing signals, ballasting, and cleaning up. They have also had time for what I suppose is officially called Marketing, but sounds suspiciously like fooling around. In July, they hosted a Race the Train event where the non- train competitors are running along the adjoining bike path. The distance is just over 3 miles, but it is all uphill. There don't appear to have been any prizes, and I couldn't find whether the train or a person won. The new line runs from Caernarfon, which is on the coast, over the hill and through Snowdonia National Park to Porthmadog, which is also on the coast, and is the connection to the Ffestiniog Ry. .

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.HERITAGE RAILWAY ASSOCIATION. Mark Garnier MP (2nd left) presents the HRA Annual Award (Large Groups) to members of the Isle of Wight Steam Railway and the Severn Valley Railway, joint winners of the award. (Photo. Gwynn Jones) SIDELINES 143 FEBRUARY 2016 WOLVERHAMPTON LOW LEVEL STATION COMES BACK TO LIFE FOR HRA AWARDS NIGHT. The Grand Station banqueting centre, once the GWR’s most northerly broad gauge station, came back to life as a busy passenger station when it hosted the Heritage Railway Association 2015 Awards Night. The HRA Awards recognise a wide range of achievements and distinctions across the entire heritage railway industry, and the awards acknowledge individuals and institutions as well as railways. The February 6th event saw the presentation of awards in eight categories. The National Railway Museum and York Theatre Royal won the Morton’s Media (Heritage Railways) Interpretation Award, for an innovative collaboration that joined theatre with live heritage steam, when the Museum acted as a temporary home for the theatre company. The Railway Magazine Annual Award for Services to Railway Preservation was won by David Woodhouse, MBE, in recognition of his remarkable 60-year heritage railways career, which began as a volunteer on the Talyllyn Railway, and took him to senior roles across the heritage railways and tourism industry. The North Yorkshire Moors Railway won the Morton’s Media (Rail Express) Modern Traction Award, for their diesel locomotive operation, which included 160 days working for their Crompton Class 25. There were two winners of the Steam Railway Magazine Award. The Great Little Trains of North Wales was the name used by the judges to describe the Bala Lake Railway, Corris Railway, Ffestiniog & Welsh Highland Railway, Talyllyn Railway, Vale of Rheidol Railway and the Welshpool & Llanfair Railway.
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Steam150 Booking Form
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15Th May 2017
£1.00 15th May 2017 Station Studio, 6 Summerleys Road, Princes Risborough, Bucks, HP27 9DT Tel: 01844 345158 Fax: 01844 274352 Email: [email protected] Web: www.grsuk.com Narrow Gauge Electric Locomotive Kits Prototype Locomotive kits Manufactured by GRS for both 45mm and 32mm gauges Tasmanian K class Beyer-Garratt 0-4-0+0-4-0 The first two Beyer-Garratt’s to be designed and built in Manchester in 1909 for the North -East Dundas Tramway line in Tasmania. They were unique amongst Garratts in being of the Compound type, a system not recommended by their designer, and having cylinders mounted at the inboard end of the power bogies. At the end of it’s service life, in 1947, K1 was repatriated to Gorton works where it was preserved until Beyer-Peacock closed the works in 1965. Now owned by the Ffestiniog railway and returned to service after an extensive restoration in 2004, K1 can now be seen at work on the Welsh Highland line. The kit is designed to be easy to build and comprises largely of a cast resin superstructure complemented by brass etches, sitting on top of two powered chassis of steel frames and brass stretchers which screw together with the addition of steel and Nickel-Silver valve gear. Length 512mm, Width 110mm, Height 175mm CMR250 K1 Beyer-Garratt loco kit 45mm Gauge CMR251 K1 Beyer-Garratt loco kit 32mm Gauge Campbeltown & Machrianish 0-6-2T Locomotive Andrew Barclay produced two of these locos in 1906/07 for the tourist passenger traffic on the remote Kintyre Peninsula railway.
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Pearce Higgins, Selwyn Archive List
NATIONAL RAILWAY MUSEUM INVENTORY NUMBER 1997-7923 SELWYN PEARCE HIGGINS ARCHIVE CONTENTS PERSONAL PAPERS 3 RAILWAY NOTES AND DIARIES 4 Main Series 4 Rough Notes 7 RESEARCH AND WORKING PAPERS 11 Research Papers 11 Working Papers 13 SOCIETIES AND PRESERVATION 16 Clubs and Societies 16 RAILWAY AND TRAMWAY PAPERS 23 Light Railways and Tramways 23 Railway Companies 24 British Railways PSH/5/2/ 24 Cheshire Lines Railway PSH/5/3/ 24 Furness Railway PSH/5/4/ 25 Great Northern Railway PSH/5/7/ 25 Great Western Railway PSH/5/8/ 25 Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway PSH/5/9/ 26 London Midland and Scottish Railway PSH/5/10/ 26 London & North Eastern Railway PSH/5/11/ 27 London & North Western Railway PSH/5/12/ 27 London and South Western Railway PSH/5/13/ 28 Midland Railway PSH/5/14/ 28 Midland & Great Northern Joint Railway PSH/5/15/ 28 Midland and South Western Junction Railway PSH/5/16 28 North Eastern Railway PSH/5/17 29 North London Railway PSH/5/18 29 North Staffordshire Railway PSH/5/19 29 Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway PSH/5/20 29 Stratford-upon-Avon and Midland Junction Railway PSH/5/21 30 Railway and General Papers 30 EARLY LOCOMOTIVES AND LOCOMOTIVES BUILDING 51 Locomotives 51 Locomotive Builders 52 Individual firms 54 Rolling Stock Builders 67 SIGNALLING AND PERMANENT WAY 68 MISCELLANEOUS NOTEBOOKS AND PAPERS 69 Notebooks 69 Papers, Files and Volumes 85 CORRESPONDENCE 87 PAPERS OF J F BRUTON, J H WALKER AND W H WRIGHT 93 EPHEMERA 96 MAPS AND PLANS 114 POSTCARDS 118 POSTERS AND NOTICES 120 TIMETABLES 123 MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS 134 INDEX 137 Original catalogue prepared by Richard Durack, Curator Archive Collections, National Railway Museum 1996.
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The Train to Downton Abbey? Presented by Ron Johnson Free Advice and Opinions: [email protected]
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Welsh Highland Railway Products: Tangent Round the Corner
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It Could Be Us!
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Annual Report 2010 Page 2 Annual Report 2010
Annual Report 2010 Page 2 Annual Report 2010 Contents Contents .......................................................................................................................... 2 Foreword ......................................................................................................................... 5 Chairman‘s Report—David T Morgan MBE TD ............................................................... 6 Vice Chairman‘s Report - Mark Smith ........................................................................... 10 Vice President‘s-report Brian Simpson .......................................................................... 12 President-Lord Faulkner of Worcester .......................................................................... 13 Managing Director—David Woodhouse ........................................................................ 14 Finance Director—Andrew Goyns ................................................................................. 15 Company Secretary - Peter Ovenstone ........................................................................ 16 Sidelines / Broadlines and Press—John Crane............................................................. 17 Railway Press —Ian Smith ............................................................................................ 19 Small Groups—Ian Smith .............................................................................................. 20 General Meetings-Bill Askew .......................................................................................
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Welsh Highland Railway Items at Gwynedd Archives
WELSH HIGHLAND RAILWAY ITEMS AT GWYNEDD ARCHIVES Page last updated 9 July 2012 This listing is offered as an indication to researchers into Welsh Highland history of what they may find in the Gwynedd Archives, principally at Caernarfon Record Office, Victoria Dock, Caernarfon. This list takes, as its start point, their catalogue and card indexes where an item appears to relate to the Welsh Highland Railway and its predecessors. The compiler has examined a number of the items and has provided notes of what those items contain – this does not purport to be a full listing of every document, but it may be helpful in guiding other researchers to items which may be of interest to them. In each case, the first line in bold is as given in Gwynedd Archives’ (hard copy) catalogue, in the following order: Reference | Date(s) (usually simply the first and last item in the file/folder) | Description (although sometimes abridged) : Remarks [if any]. The subsequent non-emboldened text is the compiler’s non-exhaustive notes of contents; where there is no such text, the item/file has not been examined - users of this list who do examine such files are invited to submit their notes of contents to enable this listing to become more comprehensive: go to http://www.railchronology.free-online.co.uk/#contact to submit. Note that unless included in quotation marks “ ” such notes should be taken merely as a precis of a document, rather than as a copy of actual text. All references in sections A., B. and C. are held at Caernarfon and are prefixed X (e.g.
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22 Beddgelert and Its Railways the Village of Beddgelert, a Staging
22) 22 Beddgelert and its railways The village of Beddgelert, a staging point on the 1802 Caernarfon-Aberglaslyn road and nowadays jammed with coaches and cars in the summer season, was for thirteen years the “frontier station” of a remarkable narrow-gauge railway system. This extended from near Caernarfon in the north to Porthmadog - a distance of some 27 miles - and as planned a branch would have diverged at Beddgelert to serve Capel Curig and Betws-y-Coed also. The Welsh Highland Railway had its origins in the North Wales Narrow Gauge Railway built in 1873, running from Dinas near Caernarfon to tap the slate quarries on Moel Tryfan (see below). Meanwhile another scheme had been promoted to reach Beddgelert from the south as the “Portmadoc, Beddgelert and South Snowdon Railway”. In its latter form this was to be an electric railway and some construction was commenced around Beddgelert involving gradients of 1 in 25 circa 1919. The company however met with financial problems, and the NWNG line had already been abandoned after quarry closures in 1916. Thus it was left to the newly formed Welsh Highland Railway to pick up the pieces from 1922. This it did with commendable speed, refurbishing the NWNG route, extending it to Beddgelert, realigning and completing the PB&SSR with gradients suitable for steam engines and upgrading the erstwhile Croesor Tramway southwards into Porthmadog: a through service of trains over the whole line started in 1923. However, this enthusiasm was short-lived and after only a few years the line became moribund, was taken over by the Festiniog Railway Co.
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Dundas Models Catalogue
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STEAM TRAINS TODAY Riding the Heritage Railways of Britain
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