WHR General Discussion.

Merde - absolument fou! Ce gars est completement stupide si'l croit que ceci c'est une bonne idée!

 

To be honest, quite a lot of what you are suggesting could be achieved by simply increasing the amount of stock on the WHR, building a couple of high powered diesel locomotives and completing Harbour Station and its resignalling. Oh, and year round running, of course.

All of these, with the exception of the last, are part of the current plan for the WHR, and are missing but one major factor - money. This is why the WHR isn't running to Porthmadog yet, why the trains are overloaded, why, once the WHR does open all the way throuhg, there is likely to be some stock shuffled between the lines.

If you could concentrate your efforts on finding an odd million or 5 to get the WHR up to scratch, I'm sure the FR Co would be willing to sit down and listen. Bear in mind the only way the public will travel on the railway is by choice - if they choose to, great, if not they don't. The FR has got timetable planners pulling their hair out over how to get the best service out to the public, providing what they can of a public transport service, whilst catering for the core seasonal and, yes, tourist, traffic.

The railway actively encourages the local populace to travel by rail by means of Y Cerddyn, which gives local residents 2/3 of the price off - its a means of competing with the buses on price, but there will never be a comparison in terms of speed.

In terms of service, the bus routes from Port - Beddgelert and Beddgelert - Waunfawr - Caernarfon are of a not dissimilar frequency to the railway, and are heavily subsidised. Port - Caernarfon buses take the route via Tremadog, Penygroes and Dinas, avoiding the majority of the route served by the WHR.

The biggest competitor to the public transport of any colour, whether on steel wheels or rubber, is of course the private car, and I think you'd have to come up with a SERIOUSLY good argument to get the residents along the WHR and FR out of them in favour of a slower service that goes a hellishly long way round to get somwhere they don't particularly want to go from a station that isn't particularly convenient.

John

 

It's far to early for that. The idea is not to take anything away from anybody but to make the best use of what we have for the good of everyone, including the other partners in this operation. For example: Garratts and chips at Llandudno beach ; even if i personally don't like either !!

 

With respect I reckon they will be able to do that without your help.

 

Thanks for at least taking this idea seriously. I can see where you are coming from, but there will be what you could call bread and butter areas that will bring in a good constant stable return, these will have the most intensive service and will prop up those areas that don't work so well, but are still needed for the social role they fill. For example, on the WHR/FR WHHR section they would run at the quiet periods during the day, but continue on late into the evenings, long after the heritage trains have finished and the same for the early mornings, plus schools, etc, otherwise in the winter there would be an comprehensive service . The idea is not to be in competion with the heritage trains, but to give a different type of service for a different type of customer. Obviously in the bigger towns the problem is not the same, there, this service would create it's own new customers by being a tramway in it's own right. This would be a low cost, practical service, with a mainly social role.

 

Help?

or do I mean

Help!

 

Obviously not !!

 

Well i'm going to ahead and whatever happens, i have nothing to lose and everything to gain !!!

 

If I might suggest another course of action to take then, the obvious, to me, at any rate, way forward for your proposals at this stage might be to actively start off where ther might be a decent market - namely Bangor - Caernarfon. That way you could set up and prove the viability of he product without trampling over others efforts, whilst simultaneously providing what many see as the missing link in what could be a major tourist draw as well. Then, with product proven, and figures to back up your claims, you could move on to the WHR as it currently is, simply by making a commercial case for shoulder period running on the WHR - filling the gaps in the service, you might say. If the return to the FR was good enough, they might well seriously consider your proposals, and there'd be none of the potential for making some fairly vocal enemies - you might even make some good, and powerful friends out of it.

I'd doubt you'd ever get to Llandudno - for one the town is well served by Network Rail, performing much the service you envision, at a far higher speed, and the best way there from Blaenau is never going to be via Porthmadog, and to be honest, you'd struggle to find any space on the Ffestiniog during the peak season.

I'm trying to be constructive in my criticism here, but it really must be left to those who have worked so hard to get the WHR rebuilt at all to make a go of it first, and theres a good 10 years or more of work left to get it into anything remotely resembling a finished state, unless someone comes up with a huge wodge of dough.

However I do think there is potential in a service from Bangor to Caernarfon, however I feel you'd be better placed trying to set this up, if it has to be a tramway at all, as a conventional modern high speed one, able to mingle with traffic on road, and speed along off road, which would point towards Standard Gauge.

Do however bear in mind that modern light rail systems have been plagued by government since Manchester brought them to the UK, and numerous ones in places like Leeds and Portsmouth, that would have a far higher chance of success, being in much less marginal cities, have died due to the governments lack of support, or withdrawal of support.

John

 

He certainly won't make one from me!!!!

 

Times are changing, ecological issues are more to the fore than ever before. This proposal includes the Conway valley right into Llandudno, by having single line working on the standard gauge line between Bangor and Llandudno jct, this would make room for the tramway, giving a full circle around the Snowdonia park. This will be done with the highest speeds possible. It's an audacious proposal but i can see it running already, with a look to taking it on further than Llandudno !!

 

Where on earth would the customers come from for an intensive service late into the evenings on the WHR/FR WHHR?

I think you're living in cloud cuckoo land

 

Times may be changing, but 2' gauge for 50 miles *on top* of the FR/WHR will never be feasable - read my earlier comments about HMRI etc. Thats without mentioning the fact that the Conwy Valley line, already a public transport provider, lives on the brink almost continuously, and that for the forseeable future it has to remain standard gauge to get the bits of Trawsfynydd out when the time is right.

On top of that, how do you propose the interchange at Llandudno Juction would work? Or for that matter sharing the tracks from the Junction to Llandudno with main line trains. The wrangling to get the WHR over the cambrian at Porthmadog was bad enough, and thats on a sparcely used branch line, not a double track main line.

Like I said, keep your dreams realistic for the time being - work towards Bangor - Caernarfon and take it from there.

John

 

No not really given it's that incomprehendable.

However if this is actualy true, and I find it hard to believe that anyone could be so stupid to go any further than thinking of such a stupid plan, perhaps this person/these people (who clearly have been smokeing something totally illeagal) haven't realised is that not only do they face the anger of a 1000+ passionate people, killing off of the WHR community, runing peoples enjoyment and depressing millions of other people, but they're also trying to destroy one of the most fantastic places in the world the FfR is like no other railway on the planet, you might try to kid yourself that another railway does, but I can be pretty much certain that there isn't, where else in the world do you find people willing to put 1000s of hours in to restoring a train of 50 pieces of victorian scrap metal so that they can be coupled together, dragged to the top of a hill, release the brakes and let 'em roll. Where else on the face of this planet will you find a railway wagon with a bow and a sail made to look like a boat, which does actually sail? Being on that thing is almost like flying, if you close your eyes only the gentle dink-dank of rail joints reminds you that you are on land. And all this (and much more) has to fit inbetween a train service of double engines and Penrhyn Ladies being pushed to their limit. The Ffestiniog is so special, so stupidly fantasticly wonderful, that if anyone did try to kill it (because that's what'd happen to the magic) I would rather see them dead.

I pity you Mr. R, I really do, to think that someone would want to encourage a scheme to try and rip apart a community with a magic that could exsist nowhere else sickens me to the bone. You remind me of how the badys from superhero films, tend to feel as though because they have never experienced the magic, or have been outcast from the magic, that they feel as though if they can't have it no one can.

 

[Standing ovation]

 

Secrecy. What is the FR trying to hide ? Who are they trying to protect ? Looks very fishy to me !!! I nearly missed this one.

 

With respect John, the fact that it would be of two foot gauge will not change anything. For the Conway valley line, we will go straight down the middle !! At Llandudno jct, straight acoss, afterwards there will be street running. For the wrangling, that's why i want the State to own the tramway system. Realistic, ive seen bigger jobs than this finished, this is an easy one !! Half the works already done !!

 

Slight misunderstanding there, I did not mean an intensive service on the WHR/FR, but where the market was good.

 

Have you ever thought of doing stand up comedy?

I havent laughed so much for ages

 

Then carry on, this is the one that's going to the Welsh assembly !! Keep on laughing.