Trawsfynydd and Blaenau Ffestiniog Railway

I think it's too early to tell if this project is going to be a success but the proximity to the Ffestiniog railway is the major problem, most people would prefer to travel on Ffestiniog as it is not a standard gauge railway and goes to somewhere rather than an old nuclear plant. I doubt most locomotive and rolling stock owners would loan to the railway unless it has a covered carriage shed as the valleys would do a lot of damage to the rolling stock. I think the post above (post 40) is right it is one of those WIBN projects, but the volunteers seem dedicated and have done a lot of work. The class 08 showed they didn't have a lot of money or financial backing and support.

 

Some people would rather be big fish in a small pond than small fry in a big pond, a situation which generates most if not all W.I.B.N schemes.

Sawdust.
(I know my plaice.)

 

Last time a bunch of upstarts tried to re-open a railway on the Ffestiniog's doorstep, the FR muscled in and took over. Maybe history will repeat itself.

If not, the FR/WHR still has the potential to create a through route between Blaenau and Bangor, with a branch to Llanberis. That really would be a useful railway.

 

Another small point about the BFf&T (the official name is that way round, not the order this thread has). The group has adopted a Welsh version of their name that has a grammatical error in it. This is the heart of Welsh-speaking Wales, whose culture is under threat and where locals have, perhaps rightly in many instances, characterized the heritage railway scene as being run by blow-ins from across the border. So, what does this new group do? They have not one word of Welsh on their website, and produce a nice enamel badge with the Welsh name wrong!

Now, I'm sure they will say they have Welsh-speakers in their group and that a Welsh-speaker provided the translation. But not all Welsh speakers have access to formal written Welsh, and just as in English you would not call a railway the 'London 'n' South Western', so in Welsh you need the correct 'mutation' in an official name.

A friend of mine pointed this out via the online contact page on their website several days ago, and has not yet received a reply. I realize in the great scheme of things this may appear trivial to railway fans, but it is a sign perhaps of a somewhat lackadaisical approach to things?

[For those who really want the detail, the name in Welsh should be 'Rheilffordd Blaenau Ffestiniog a Thrawsfynydd'.]

 

that's easy for you to say
doesn't appear trivial to me. If some interloper were to spell my home town Redding , I'd be aggrieved.

 

I think the Dragon was referring to Felix's own error.

 

Err, no, Thrawsfynydd is correct in this case; Trawsfynydd is incorrect following the word for 'and'. That's the point.

 

Yes, Felix is quite right. The word for and ('a') is followed by the Aspirate Mutation (as are the words 'tri', 'tra', 'tua', ei' meaning "her", 'gyda', 'ni' and a few others). This mutation changes word initial 'p' to 'ph' (=ff), 't' to 'th', and 'c' to 'ch' (as in Scottish 'loch'). This is only one of three different mutation types and these changes are very characteristic of the Celtic languages as a whole.

The best book on these mutations is 'Mutation in Welsh', published by Routledge. It's available on Abebooks: https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=20024250469&searchurl=sts=t&tn=Mutation+in+Welsh&sortby=17

 

How is it pronounced?

 

Wow - that's cool!!

For pronunciation: 'th' is like English 'th' in 'thin'; 'dd' is like English 'th' in 'then' (try them out, they really are different: 'thin' is said without the vocal cords vibrating through the 'th' part; 'then' is said with the vocal cords vibrating throughout the entire word including the 'th' part). And yes, I am actually a professor of phonetics (reeelly)

 

Now we know, get your mutation right and the natives will welcome the scheme with open arms.

 

I would have thought 'treat the local culture with respect and they will welcome you'.

 

That's my normal approach which I find has got me through Europe without ever having the "poor treatment of Brits" that some complain about. However, in this case I felt that the group promoting the scheme was getting a little too much stick when they had clearly tried to treat the local culture properly but had fallen down. Of course, had they put "Trawsfynydd" first they would not have had this difficulty.

 

Apologies - the emoji was misleading....

Yes, indeed - if the title was as per this thread then no mutations raise their heads!

Maybe it was felt that Blaenau was a better known name - or did this ordering reflect an older name of the line, I wonder?

 

my point earlier that Miff missed

I know better than to comment of Celtic spellings, total mystery to me, even after 30 years