MATT TAYLOR visits a Narrow Gauge Railway in Wales on a rainy day.
Back in July my partner and I visited north Wales to have a little break through the summer holidays. We decided to stay in Caernarfon, but unfortunately we were not able to visit the famous castle due to Covid restrictions. We spent a week exploring the Snowdonia National Park and visited several tourist places like Beddgelert and Aber Falls.
On the final day, before the long drive home, we had pre-booked a trip up the Snowdon Mountain Railway. This line is a narrow-gauge rack railway which is 4.7 miles long, running from Llanberis to the summit of Snowdon - which is the highest peak in Wales. The SMR is the only public rack and pinion railway in the United Kingdom and has run for over one hundred years.
We started at the bottom at Llamberis station. At the station is the ticket office and main headquarters, and the station has two platforms. The SMR engine shed and workshops are visible, but we were not able to have a closer look.
As you can see the weather was not amazing - but we are in Wales! To be fair, this was the worst day of the week and all the other days the weather was amazing. Due to social distancing, the carriage was limited to a few people and we could not visit the summit. But they did take us up to Clogwyn Station, which is 2,556ft above sea level. As you can see from the pictures, we could not take in the view! We stayed at Clogwyn for around half an hour and had a walk around trying not to get lost in the fog!
The diesel locomotive that took us up was called George and was built in 1992. They currently have four in operation called Nanian, Yeti, Peris and George. They do also have steam locomotives, but they were not running on the day that we visited.
Overall Wales was an interesting place to visit and I wish we had time to go on the Welsh Highland Railway from Caernarfon to Porthmadog. Hopefully, we can do that next time!