It's raining and getting markedly colder this morning in Lincolnshire, so I think it must be officially Autumn. After the great burst of activity on the garden railway earlier in the year, I have been distracted onto other things over the last three months and have been somewhat horrified by how quickly the garden attempts to reclaim my new trackbed - I've only just started building and a regular weedkilling train is already becoming a necessity.
We did the annual pilgrimage to North Wales last month, main
objective was to climb Snowdon with the boys but, of course, we still managed to
find a little time for railways - Ffestiniog, Welsh Highland, Talyllyn and
Fairbourne this time round.
After taking the Llanberis Path "tourist track" the
last few times I've been up Snowdon, this time we started from the top of the
pass and went up the shorter, steeper Pyg track. Highly recommended, the views
are superb all the way up - having got to the top we came back via the Llanberis
Path so that we could see the engines running up and down the railway as we
walked down.
Having made it to the top (and seeing progress on the new cafe up there), we came down the Llanberis path way, stopping for a look at the engines at the bottom.
We spent a happy day at the Talyllyn Railway, took a ride to the top and had a look round their excellent museum at Towyn.
A run out to Beddgelert for a visit to the excellent ice cream shop there also meant an opportunity to see progress on the Welsh Highland Railway, which continues its rapid progress towards
Aberglaslyn. Father and I have been walking up and down the pass for the last
forty years imagining trains running there again (and in those days you could
still walk through the tunnels). We can't have long to wait now. Beddgelert
station, behind the Royal Goat Hotel, is a hive of activity - for years the only
sign of the old railway was a pair of concrete pillars which used to support the
water tower. They are still there, in the middle of the newly rebuilt station,
now well-advanced.
