FR & WHR & WHHR News

Thanks for that. Did you also get ten years out of them as well - ie could a double engine run 100k miles (or close to …) between overhauls - impressive if so!

Tom

 

From the F&WHR today, as well as modern images, this [5'38"] takes us right back to 1955/6, when Prince held the fort as the only working steam loco. Keep an eye out for a few details. The Spooner 'super elevation' on the platform road is pretty clear to see, as it the 3-way point at the headshunt (which i believe is still in use in Minffordd Yard).

 

The power bogies usually need overhauling around every 3 years. Some of the bearing surfaces are quite constrained by the design, and these locos work very hard. Typically you can turn a pair around over a winter though and have the loco available when daily service starts.

 

How is the new bearing material (ceramic?) holding up in service?

 

There's still only a summary timetable on the website. Is there going to be any more information published prior to the event (or available at it)?

Sent from my SM-G770F using Tapatalk

 

Full details with loco allocations, full timetable etc are in the Spotters Guide (available for £4).
I pre-ordered mine with my rover tickets so got sent a digital version by email a few days ago.
I also got my paper copy when picking up my tickets in Porthmadog on Sat.

There was a request in the email not to share the guide so I can't repost here.

 

Thanks for this tip. Bought a guide last night and had it emailed to me today which I thought was a nice touch.

Sent from my SM-G770F using Tapatalk

 

Fun day on Saturday at the 'Bygones Weekend'. Issues with Blanche on the early train to Blaenau Ffestiniog meant regularly having to stop to build up steam, and we only made it as far as Ddault before DLG was attached and back we went. We saw Blanche double heading with a diesel on its second run, although I think it did its last run of the day on its own.

We took a break at Tan-y-Bwlch before taking the Victorian train back to Porthmadog with Welsh Pony. Then a run to Beddgelert and back with Lyd and the 1920s train.

I always love a trip to Porthmadog, and this time we stayed in the town rather than, as previously, staying in Caernarfon. Food options in the evening though were very limited. A number of places weren't offering food on Saturday night, and those that were didn't have a table to spare (we eventually found a curry house with space as long as we were out of the door inside an hour).

Sent from my SM-G770F using Tapatalk

 

I think DLG took Blanche's afternoon train on Saturday (think it would have been an ECS move if you saw Blanche leaving Port solo on Saturday afternoon). Lyd replaced Blanche on Sunday, with Garratt 87 replacing Lyd to Beddgelert with the 1920s train, 87 plus Bug Boxes made an interesting combination.

 

Watching the Moving Pictures video og proceedings, I got very frustrated with the editing whilst trying to count the waggons in the gravity train. Looks like I missed het another fun weekend. Rats!

 

Bygones (formerly Victorian Weekend) is always a great weekend and has perhaps become one of my regular calendar fixtures. Noticeably this year there were fewer people in period attire but hopefully that will increase in the future - they always added to the atmosphere, but any chance to see the vintage fleet in use is always nice.

 

Wonder if Blaenau had more eateries? Albeit it's a bit late on in the season, you'd think businesses would jump at the chance of a planned weekend, where a good percentage of tickets are sold far in advance.

 

It was great to be back at the Ffestiniog for the Bygones Weekend. Due to Covid, I hadn't had a chance to get up there since the 2019 Victorian Weekend, and I didn't really fancy messing around with the pre-booked fixed-itinerary setup anyway.

This year I really threw myself into it with the photography session on Friday morning (cold, wet and windy!), the WW1 display and Minffordd shuttles on Friday evening, a superb History tour of Boston Lodge on the Saturday afternoon and then the night photography session at Minffordd on Saturday evening. All a good chance to improve my DSLR skills (though I definitely still have some way to go).

The weekend was overall excellent, though the loco problems did throw things out of whack a bit. I was on the last train up to Blaenau on Sunday with Palmerston, which had to stop twice for a blow up between Rhiw Goch and Tan-y-Bwlch, before eventually being terminated there to avoid returning ridiculously late (as had happened to Blanche on Friday night!).

Was nice to finally get to see the magnificently restored Welsh Pony in the flesh, and get a decent ride behind her up to TYB. I also sampled the unexpected Garratt on the vintage set to Beddgelert.
With Linda, Taliesin and Prince all out of service, it did seem that the loco options were a little more limited than previously, though it was good to see Lilla and 608 paying visits to Harbour, as well as Mountaineer back on public display ahead of its hopeful return to traffic.

While it was great having the ability to hop on and off the special trains at will, one slight annoyance was that the Gala rover tickets didn't include travel on the pre-booked 'Mountain Spirit' services, which did leave some quite big gaps in the timetable, especially if you wanted to get to the top end of the line. Would have been nice to have had one or two coaches available to gala rover holders on a 'First come, first served' basis.

Hoping that the FR will build on the success of this event for WHR 100 next year, and hopefully go back to a full-on old-style Victorian weekend in future with costumed characters, ferris wheel etc.


Merddin Emrys arrives at Tan-y-Bwlch


Mountaineer and Lilla on display at Harbour Station. Sadly Lilla wasn't running any passenger trains this time.


Blanche coming on shed at Boston Lodge


Welsh Pony and DLG preparing to head the photographer special to Minffordd


Welsh Pony and DLG at the Minffordd night photo session


Welsh Pony at the Minffordd night photo session, unlike previous events, there wasn't a freight set as well.


Welsh Pony with a vintage set at Harbour.

 

If you don't pre-book in Porthmadog, you might as well not bother most of the time, even out of peak season. When you can get somewhere, the food does tend to be decent and the service good.

Blaneau is usually dead in the evenings aside from the chippy. There are a few decent places which could perhaps have been persuaded to open in the evenings specially, although they may lack the will and/or resources.

 

It's fair to say the lack of the usually excellent hot food at Spooners was disappointing. I did get the Jerk Chicken from one of the hired-in caterers on Friday night, which was actually very nice, but the rest of my group went to the burger van and weren't too impressed.
Saturday night, I was surprised to see The Creel (chippy on the High St) shut when I wanted a quick dinner at about 5:30pm ahead of the photo session, surely missing a massive amount of business there! Ended up going to the other one across the road but not as good IMHO.

The rest of the week we were up there, we ended up going for a nice meal at The Ship three times, though they only just squeezed us in on the Thursday night!

The New Yamin Chinese also does very good food, but they're still operating in full-Covid mode, with no seating inside, only two customers allowed at one time, and your food handed through a hatch in a perspex screen like you're being served in a bank!

Hopefully the FR will be able to properly staff Spooners soon. It would also nice to see the on-train catering return properly. We did the WHR on the Saturday before Bygones weekend and did miss the usual opportunity to order up a bacon roll and tea on the outbound and a Welsh cake on the return!

 

The whole situation at Blaenau I find distinctly odd. On the one hand, a lot of time and effort has gone into commemorating 'The Town Which Roofed the World" and the place certainly looks less woebegone than back in the 1970's. On the other, it's hard to avoid the impression that a proportion locally are .... how to put this? ..... less than completely onboard with the whole tourism thing.

To an extent, I can understand why a resolutely monoglot tide of tourists swamping the town might grate against some sensibilities, but in that respect Blaenau is certainly no worse off than any other destination on the tourist trail, be that Benidorm or Belize.

Oni fyddai'n rhywbeth i weld rhyw ddigwyddiad yn seiliedig ar Blaenau? Os ydi o'n beth diwylliannol, ydy hi wir yn wir achos bod Eisteddfod Genedlaethol Cymru ddim yn gadael dim lle i unrhyw beth arall sydd wedi ei anelu at y boblogaeth breswyl?

Esgusodwch fy Nghymraeg ofnadwy, os gwelwch chi'n dda.

I'd love to see something which necessitated both FfR platforms at the top terminus being in use, if just for one weekend a year. Thoughts?

 

All in all another great weekend at Bygones. Nice to be able to jump between sets again, although the Victorian Set was often full to capacity (and a bit less capacity without the flying bench and coach 18). Thanks to all involved in putting it on.

Some photos below, and more at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/24236352@N02/

 

The event was not quite on the same scale as pre-covid but heading in the right direction. They are still trying to get a feel for what feasible in the current climate. The lack of locos also limits things somewhat too. There certainly seemed to be a good buzz about the place though that has been sadly missing in recent years.

Blanche unfortunately started suffering from leaking superheater ball joints on Friday afternoon. This just decimates performance on this loco. They always pick thier moments don't they.

The current batch of ovoids is particularly poor and was causing problems especially with the England's. So a bit of a challenging weekend for crews all round.

A lot of work has gone into both the slate and goods trains this year. The slate waggons have had extensive work on the brake gear to the point that 2 brakes is now enough to control the speed on a 39 waggon train. Recently restored coal waggon 20 also made its debut. This is basically a new vehicle with old iron work on and the gunpowder van is now back running after a long absence. The shed is really proving it's worth already allowing us to really make some progress with the heritage waggon fleet. Needless to say there is lots more to come.

Tim

 

Cheers Tim. You just confirmed my suspicions about the cause of issues with Palmerston and Blanche. Clearly some way to go with alternative solid fuels, though methinks anything which works well with Pamerston is likely to work on just about any loco, any gauge, anywhere!