FR & WHR & WHHR News

......but the WHR is not a heritage railway and has never pretended to be.............what i do find surprising about this station project is that they completely forgot to include the multi-storey car park on top which would have been a vital financial resource for the railway to make up for the lack of trains ...............

 

Thats strange,on my last trip on the WHR I thought I remembered passing a rather beautifully restored station called Tryfan Junction,clearly I must have imagined it....

 

......wasn't that actually proposed on this very forum some years ago now ? ...............

 

....you're slightly off track there, never mind..........the usual excuse dragged out for not using older locomotives and smaller trains is because apparently the WHR is not an heritage railway and was never intended to be........it's for tourists.........

 

but hasn't that been tried? I recall that a couple of years ago there was a timetabled late afternoon Port/Rhydd D return working in high season using FR stock and Fairlie-hauled. I travelled on it twice and it was brilliant,however both times it was very poorly loaded and importantly from the revenue point of view, by far the majority of passengers were clearly enthusiasts travelling on free or FR priv tickets! It didnt run again after that season.

 

There are different ways of doing that, and they don't have to include caricatures of period buildings. Good use of local materials, slate in particular, could 'reflect the history', without constraining the architecture to periods long gone.

That said, I've just reminded myself of the 2014 concept drawings, which seemed to have more 'wood' in them rather than the rather more utilitarian image in the recent article. The earlier image was still modern but softer, more sympathetic I guess, to the surrounding areas. But in both cases, the drawings are poor quality, low res, with no detailed indication of finish. I'd like to see more detail on those things, but I think the shape/broad style is really good.

Simon

 

Whether you go down the modern route or the traditional route, I think it needs to be easily identifiable as a station - something I don't think the current plan achieves.


Keith

 

Agree with that. This is really dismal IMHO. East Midlands Parkway looks better. The fad in the 1960s for Dan Dare type modernism did dreadful things to our high streets and city centres, and I rather hoped that we could do better now. There must be something in the Network Rail playbook they can come up with.

 

Is there any truth to the idea that the WHR could extend out of Caernarfon towards Bangor?
If it is something that is being considered, then do these new plans take that into account?
Seems silly to spend £2m on something only to rebuild it at a later date when throughput is an issue.

 

.....sounds more and more like the North Wales Tramway project mentioned on here many moons ago ......i find it hard to see how those who are running the town could even accept a building like that with that purpose in mind......

 

Source: http://www.festrail.co.uk/about.htm

 

Personally, the wooden panelling was the element that concerned me most about the previous design. I've seen other buildings in a similar style, and yes, they do look good, when they are brand new. However, looking at the Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury suggests that the wooden panels do NOT age well! I might not look too bad in photos but believe me, in the flesh, it's a bit of an eyesore. And that's a building only six years old!

Also, personally I think that the predominantly stone-based look of the new design is more in keeping with the surrounding architecture, particularly the castle.

As for the "heritage" aspect - if this were an extension to, say, Porthmadog Harbour station, then I think there would be a case for building something traditional, so that it didn't look out-of-place with the surrounding buildings. But this is a brand new station, in a place where there never was a station until the modern WHR arrived in 1997. To try to build something purporting to be Victorian or 1920s doesn't make sense. Better to build something that sits harmoniously with its surroundings (by using traditional local materials), but is still identifiable as a product of our own era. That way, people will know the genuine article - such as the restored Moel Tryfan building - when they see it. Personally, I think a traditional style building would actually end up looking like something from a Disney theme park - is that really what we want?

 

I've seen that somewhere before I'm sure......

https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/...LCVxgc7kXoej88nVUvohHo-8dYq6BiOmUc3Mw0o6QPptc

Chris

 

The same thought went through my mind as well - I see Theatre Severn almost every day and it getting noticeably worse month by month. Not only is the cladding weathering unevenly, there are streaks showing (probably from corroding fixings) and I noticed a couple of days ago that some of the cladding is now warping and gaps opening up. It's probably a good example of how not to do cedar cladding...

Leaving aside the overall "look" of the proposed station for a moment, what ever it is made from needs to be robust and low maintenance - you can debate the heritage/modern issue 'til the cows come home, but the reality is that there are not huge pots of money available to keep repairing things. I hope that whatever eventually gets built can stand the test of time - modern styles are not always as robust as traditional ones (particularly flat roofs and metal window systems).

What would I prefer? Actually I'm not that fussed! When I look around Caernarfon there is a big mix of old and new, but it really is a place that is crying out for a bit of TLC and tidying up. And nowhere more so than the area around the WHR station. Traditional or modern, I hope that the other side of the road gets the attention it needs too!

Steve B

 

i think a mini version of the Welsh Assembly Building or Millenium Centre (theatre) (both Cardiff) would look rather nice in that setting if 'modern' is thought appropriate.

personally, i see no reason whatsoever why not to follow the NWNGR house style extended to what might have been appropriate originally had the line been extended to Caernarvon. not perhaps as 'Grand' as Douglas IOM, but something along the same lines. im sure you get the idea. after all, alongside the above Cardiff buildings is the original head quarters of the Cardiff Railway Co which is quite 'Grand' and not dissimilar from Douglas IOM. imagine something similar in the NWNGR style rather than decorative brick.

cheers,
julian

 

Listening to comments from a member of my model engineering society who visited the area recently, his opinion was that other than the castle Caernarfon was like the inland end of the FfR (B Ff on sea!).

 

Here it is preserved at De Aar in 1972 :
R4369. 2' Gauge NG4 at De Aar. 3rd September,1972. by Ron Fisher, on Flickr

 

Not sure I would wish it on a tram system. Here is the new Clifton South in Nottingham, simple, elegant, even has a coffee shop.