Prompted by British Rail’s decision to ban any further steam
workings on the national network after 1968, we were faced with the need to
break new ground to find some alternatives.
The girls were coming away with us by then. Whether the
pursuit of steam on our joint holidays was fully explained to all those
concerned before we set off, or whether we just winged it as we went - along the lines of “Oh, look, there’s a steam
railway. That’s a surprise. Let’s stop and have a look,” I’m not absolutely
sure.
The Ffestiniog Railway was already the best known narrow
gauge railway in Britain when our mixed group of eight made a first visit there
in September 1971. The old slate carrying line had re-opened for passenger
traffic across the Cob in 1955 and reached Ddualt in 1968. The new deviation from
the original route that was required to by-pass the Tanigrisiau reservoir was
completed in 1978. Trains returned to Blaenau Ffestiniog in 1982 and the
extraordinary feat of rebuilding the whole line was accomplished.
We travelled by car from Wallasey, paying for our petrol,
the hire of sheet sleeping bags [as required] and the 2 over-nights with “the new
money” that had been introduced earlier in the year.
We stayed at Llanberis youth hostel on the 3/9/71 and
Llanbedr YH the following day. The photographic record suggests that we did not
enjoy the best of weather, either down at the coast or up in the mountains.
Linda at Porthmadog station.
Linda enters Tan-y-Bwlch station.
Double Fairlie Merddyn Emrys at Porthmadog station.
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