Bala lake Railway.

Video with the latest details. Please comment if you want to see the extension complete

 

Application approved!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0jpy6yzl6zo

 

Great news.

 

Bit worried about the caveat at the end....
So it's a 'Yes, if '

 

I wouldn’t have thought the caveat will make too much of a difference, as they’re going to have to do a bit of fundraising before they can start work anyway.

 

1. My point is that with the new government cutting expenditure on infrastructure, it may be (I don't have knowledge of the project in question that has to start) that it will never start. It is a risk, I don't know how big.

 

Pleased that "permission" has been granted, even with the proviso that the waste water plant upgrade "ought" to be dons first.

Plenty of fundraising and other precursor works ahead ...

 

In answer to Breva above my understanding they aren't relying on gift money but doing a significant fundraising effort. With the tracked already done I assume there will be nothing to stop laying track there ? As long as people don't alight there?

 

The work at the treatment works will be delivered by Dwr Cymru as part of their asset management plan and will not be reliant on any Governmrnt funding.
In terms of the trackbed, when I was there a few weeks ago there was no trackbed. Allowance has been made along the shore of the lake but there is still quite alot of work to do to get the track from the current formation to that point.

 

Indeed, in fact the Dwr Cymru works are already taking place, started late last year

 

Even allowing that the Dwr Cymru works are complete by next Easter, as has been said the trackbed will need to be set out and graded before you can think about laying track, I am not sure if there is any other civil engineering work that needs to be done before that can happen.

That said I welcome this news and hopefully by 2026/7 the extension will have been built and in operation.

 

FYI: Dŵr Cymru. Makes no sense with the short vowel.

 

I think your timescales are optimistic. There is a significant change to a public highway and a cantilever bridge across a river to be built. The paperwork alone will keep everyone busy for 18 months.

 

A very good update from the Green Signals team:

 

Unfortunately, they couldn't be bothered to get someone to tell the narrator how to pronounce Welsh place names, and most were severely butchered. This really shouldn't still be an issue these days especially as most of the place names are easy for english speakers if they can be bothered to ask.

 

Unless most of their listeners/viewers were in England, in which case they would be used to the English pronunciation. Welsh pronunciations are really just for Welsh citizens speaking to each other. We pronounce Paris as "Pa" "Ris" whereas the French pronounce it as "Pa" "Ree". So a French podcast that is targeting an English audience would use the English pronunciation rather than the French one.

 

As a incomer from across the border, 16 years later I still struggle with some of the place names around here... As do some of my native colleagues! Personally I thought that was an excellent effort by the Green Signals team and with over 20k views already I'm sure the team at Bala will be delighted with the resulting programme.
Liked and shared.

 

I hope that was meant as joke which I am not seeing as otherwise it comes across to me as very condescending. I presume you would not be happy if people could not be bothered trying to say your name correctly. Many towns and and villages in Wales have both Welsh and English names. e.g. Bala Lake/Llyn Tegid, Snowdonia/Eryri. They are those names of those places and everybody should endeavour to pronounce correctly whichever version they use.

I think some of the mispronunciations in the video are simply due to the way the narrator at times pronounces the letter A. Rather than pronounce as in Apple it is pronounced as the AR in bar or car. To my eyes a very upper class pronunciation. Consequently even very straight forward names like Ruabon and even Bala at times are, to my ear, very strangely pronounced. It is like an extra r is added mid sentence. For such a video it is dissapointing

 

If the mispronunciation of certain places is really so bad, how’s about maybe getting in touch with those at Green Signals and maybe trying to do something positive about it so it doesn’t happen again?

Just a thought from someone who thought this was a decent production trying to show something very positive and not being surprised that as ever there’s some negativity by some on here.
FFS

 

Amen to that!!