The Welsh Mountaineer - 26th August 2009

Most unfortunate - I feel that the Festiniog Railway has since 1982 become a serious public transport link which indeed fills in the rail gap between North and Mid Wales without the need to detour through England. But they presumably had a contract with RTC, and would not necessaily have had a spare engine and train ready for immediate use and in the right place. Not an easy situation for them.

The Black Five must have been a great sight and experience - would have gone if it fitted in with work commitments.

John

 

The 45 minute late departure wasn't only because the Welsh Mountaineer was late.

It arrived at 1345 and we immediately boarded the Ffestiniog train (due out at 1340). And there we sat. At 1415 we were told we would leave at 1425, and we did. So the delay after, say, 1400 was due to some other cause. I do not know what this was, but the Ffestiniog seemed to be in something of a muddle.

HTH

AN

 

There is a spare platform at Blanau and there were only 3 trains running (Merddin Emrys, David Lloyd George & Blanche) so unlikely there wasn't something spare.

I haven't blamed RTC as they purely booked places on a Ffestiniog train, not their responsbility to think about how late running might affect the FR timetable, that buck stops at Porthmadog.

 

Unless there was something going on behind the scenes the only reason for the delay between 45231 arriving and FR train departing was purely to let the tour partcipants get a phot from every concievable angle, certainly was no sense of urgency which was most infuriating and my chances of making 76079 came and went and ticked worringly close to not getting home till stupid o clock.

I want to stress again im not blaming RTC or anyone on the tour, it's the FR's handling of the whole thing that was unacceptable.

 

48 photos of the Welsh Mountaineer now on line here:

http://andrewstransport.fotopic.net/c1747269.html

They include a few shots taken during a ride on the Ffestiniog Rly from Blaenau to Tan y Bwlch, and six night shots of 45231 at Preston, including three of 45231 alongside 5690 Leander.

Cheers

AN

 

Some lovely shots there, good to see I’ve made my way into a couple of them!

 

Yes, many thanks for the updates chaps. I've shot 5 hours of video during 12 days away from home, so there's a lot of sorting out to do...

 

Steamy Preston

Lovely to see such a detailed record of what must have been a very dismal and drab day. As others have commented, I really like the image at Preston which is such a rare sight in preservation. I couldn't resist giving it a little tweak in Photoshop as attached, and apologise for so doing, but please take it as a compliment to an excellent photo.
Pete

 

More Preston manipulation

Sorry to further tweak an excellent original, but it is true- it would have been nice not to have to contend with overhead wirings and orange jackets, but this is just a photoshop fantasy of course.
Pete