The Welsh Highland Railway enjoyed a brief existence in the 1920s and 30s but unlike its near neighbour, and occasional partner, the industry-backed Ffestiniog it could never pay its way and closed in the late 1930s.
Yet the route meanders through some of the most beautiful scenery of the Snowdonia National Park and runs past the foot of the park’s central attraction, 1000m Mount Snowdon, as well as through the spectacular Aberglaslyn Pass.
That scenery, together with the fact that the trackbed was never completely removed, helped persuade volunteers to begin rescuing and re-opening the line during the past three or four decades with reconstruction beginning in the 1990s.
Now the Welsh Highland Railway is running again, offering scenic journeys in the comfort of new carriages from a new terminus at Caernarvon, close to that city’s famous medieval castle, through the national park. The trains will eventually run to the thriving Ffestiniog Railway’s terminus at Portmadoc when work is completed in 2011.
Great Little Trains Reborn
The rebirth of the so-called “Great Little Trains of Wales” – most of them originally developed to carry slate from quarries to the sea – began back in the 1950s when engineer and writer LTC Rolt led the campaign to save the Talyllyn Railway from closure. He and other volunteers then turned their attention to the much longer Ffestiniog Railway (correctly spelt with two “f’s” but which English enthusiasts came to call the Festiniog with one “f”) which subsequently became one of the most successful tourist attractions in Wales.
Other narrow gauge railways were saved, re-opened or laid on the track beds of former standard gauge railways.
The Welsh Narrow Gauge
The Welsh narrow gauge railways date from the early part of the nineteenth century. The mountainous countryside precluded the use of the usual four foot six inch standard gauge so engineers devised the narrower gauge – roughly two feet between the rails and thus less than half the width of standard gauge – and built a new breed of locomotives to run on them.
In the 1860s and 70s, the Festiniog’s secretary and engineer Charles Spooner dreamt up the idea of the North Wales Narrow Gauge Railways, a huge web of narrow gauge lines the length and breadth of north Wales.
But only two of these later lines were ever built and after struggling to survive they were taken over by a local aluminium producer and joined up as one line – the Welsh Highland Railway. It ran from an exchange station with the standard gauge at Dinas, near Caernarvon, to the Ffestiniog Railway’s harbour terminus at Portmadog.
But the completed railway was in trouble from the beginning. Its best year for traffic was just three years after the takeover when its completion began, after which traffic declined despite attempts to boost the railway’s appeal including marketing it as part of a scenic round trip of North Wales.
The slate industry was declining, tourists were turning to charabancs – early types of bus – and companies were using ex-military lorries for deliveries. The Ffestiniog eventually took the Welsh Highland over but that failed to breathe life into the doomed line which eventually fell silent in 1937.
Equipment was sold off for the war effort during the Second World War and part of the trackbed was used for target practice. After the war campaigns to convert the trackbed into a long-distance footpath ensured the route remained in existence, but there was little hope of a return to narrow gauge steam railways.
Volunteers Inspired by Railway Success Stories
Inspired by the revival first of the Talyllyn Railway, then of the Ffestiniog and then of other Welsh narrow gauge lines – all of which are now thriving – a group of enthusiasts formed in 1961 a society which became the Welsh Highland Light Railway.
Trackbed was repaired, track laid, locomotives and rolling stock bought as the Welsh Highland slowly came back to life. As the standard gauge line at Dinas had long since been lifted, the narrow gauge was laid on the old standard gauge trackbed right into the heart of Caernarvon to help attract the tourist traffic on which the line would depend.
Driving the Trains
Motive power is provided by a fleet of Garratt locomotives – a type of locomotive with one powerful central boiler feeding two sets of cylinders and wheels sitting beneath two tenders at the front and back of the boiler. One engine is the first Garratt ever built which served for many years in Tasmania. Others have come from South Africa, whose narrow gauge railways converted to diesel just in time for the Welsh Highland to buy its redundant stock.
The trains include standard narrow-gauge stock plus open-air carriages and luxury Pullman carriages including an observation carriage. There are buffet, toilet and wheelchair facilities and a bike van for the national park’s many cyclists.
The success of the Festiniog, Tallyllyn and other “Great Little Trains of Wales” like the Welshpool and Llanfair suggest the Welsh Highland has a successful future ahead of it.
Sources:
JIC Boyd The Festiniog (sic) Railway 1800-1974 Vols 1 and 2, Blandford: the Oakwood Press (1975)
J Winton: Little Wonder (1975)
Websites of the Welsh Highland Railway and Ffestiniog Railway
Personal knowledge of and contacts with the Ffestiniog, Talyllyn and Welsh Highland Railways and the Snowdonia National Park.
John Reynolds - I write about a range of subjects for which I have a passion including art (particularly Renaissance and English landscape) English ...
