Walking the old line south of Drys-y-nant

With talk of the Corwen extension in the rail pres and of two LLangollen rail members walking from Ruabon to Barmouth Jnc I've been thinking of walking some more of the old line myself . Has anyone walked the stretch south of Drys-y-nant towards Dollgellau?

If so, any thoughts about the best stretches, the best uninterrupted stretches for walking etc

 

I walked it in 1966.

 

I rode it behind steam in 1962 - train hauled by a Churchward Mogul I think. I thought it was Drws-y-nant?

 

In the early 80's we were clearing out the former up platform toilet block at Llangollen & came across a pile of cast iron letters which had obviously been removed from a backing board. Two of us shuffled these about but couldn't make them into any name - then one of our Welsh members had a look & spelt out 'DRWS Y NANT'.
I don't what happened to them subsequently.

Bob.

 

A few weeks ago when travelling along the A494 Bala to Dolgellau road I could see the mostly undisturbed trackbed running parallel with the road for much of the distance. A short section of the former trackbed at Drws-y-nant has been used for realignment of the road. I saw sections around Bont Newydd which are clearly walkable but enclosed by trees. Approaching Dolgellau the trackbed becomes part of field before ending at the realigned A470 which now takes the former railway route through the town .
In my opinion the best undisturbed sections appear to be between Llanuwchyllyn and Drws-y-nant. Recommend check them on the ariel mapping sites such as www.multimap.co.uk.

 

I drove along the road today and endeavoured to have a look as I did so. The section from Drws y Nant towards Bontnewydd (I turned off there) looked fairly overgrown with trees but that in the opposite direction towards Garneddwen Halt seemed much clearer although largely recovered by farmers for their use. Suggest you look on Google Earth for better information.

 

I suppose i would be the best person to answer this post really.... I'm one half of the team that did the sponsered walk!

Anyway, there is not much left of Drws y Nant station, but the site can easily be found. A minor road runs across the trackbed on the south side of the site, and what looks like the crossing keepers house is still there. There is a sign on the gate with Station cottage, or somthing not too dissimilar. About 200 yards further on the A494 is on top of the trackbed. As the road is on and off the route for the next mile or so, we stuck to walking along the road as far as a village called Rhydymain. Which, as far as we could see is the largest village between Llanuwchlyn and Ddolgellau, but never had a station! Shortly after this village, a public footpath goes off on the left hand side of the road (you can see a large railway bridge crossing the river, as far is i recall it is 2 steel spans and a brick arch). Here is about 3 miles of trackbed that would be perfect to walk. It is in the trees, right next to the river. And there is even still top quality Arenig ballast underfoot!

I'll dig out my rather batterd OS and get some reference numbers for you.

Iain

 

Wouldn't recommend that bit! There was a lot of very angry looking bulls in those fields when we were walking through!

 

And i'd only recommend the bit between Llanuwchlyn and Drws y nant if you like climbing over barbed wire fences... I think we had to get over about 15 in this section...

 

Great answers all! Cheers! Iain those map references would be great, ta! Also Iain are there any missing bridges over the river between Drys -y-nant and Bontnewydd?

Just on another note. About 1977 I walked the bed from Llanderfel to Corwen. Llanderfel incidentally at that time still resembled a station site as the remains of the box was still there and there was a clear gap between the platforms now compleatly filled in with leaf fall..but anyway I digress. In my mind now I remember having to take numerous diversions because of missing bridges over the river and streams between these two points. The weird thing is google earth suggests that there is only a missing bridge (over water) at Llandrillo!!! (which I've since visited and confirmed) Very bizzare!! How the mind plays tricks eh?

By the way there are pics I took in 2008 of the old trackebed along with other peoples pics at this site http://disused-rlys.fotopic.net/c1465550.html

Keep the contributions on this topic coming!