Holiday in Wales day 2, tuesday 5th May ( part 2)

Holiday in Wales day 2 (part 2)

Yesterday I stopped writing when I reached the bit where we left the Maritime Museum at Porthmadog Harbour. We headed out of the Harbour, over the little bridge where the trains cross the road, past the grey slate house and back to Porthmadog Harbour railway station. Here we boarded our first steam train. I think I’ve already said the holiday was actually called ‘the great little train journeys of Wales’. The major attraction of the holiday was the train journeys and the fantastic scenery along the way.  So here we were, about to embark on the first train journey of the week.

We boarded the Ffestiniog railway and traveled the whole length of the track from Porthmadog to Blaenau where our coach driver Dagmar was waiting for us.  

(the technical/ history bit)

The Ffestiniog Railway is a 2Ft (597 mm) narrow gauge heritage railway, located in Gwynedd, Wales. It’s located within the Snowdonia National Park. The railway is roughly 13 1⁄2 miles long and runs from the Harbour at Porthmadog to the slate mining town of Blaenau Ffestiniog. The journey travels through the most amazing forests, mountains and rivers. The line was constructed between 1833 and 1836 to transport slate from the quarries around the inland town of Blaenau Ffestiniog to the coastal town of Porthmadog where it was loaded onto ships. Originally long heavy trains full of slate rolled downhill under the power of gravity. Once the slate was removed from the train and loaded onto waiting ships horses pulled the empty trains back up the track to the slate mines. In 1863 steam engines replaced the horses. Two of the original steam engines; the Palmerston and The Prince are both still in use today. The train climbs over 700 feet up into the Welsh mountains with views (on a clear day) out to sea and across Snowdonia.  The final destination of the train is the town of Blaenau which used to be known as; ‘The town that roofed the world’, on account of the amount of slate it exported to far flung corners of the world.

By the time the train chugged out of the station, the rain was getting heavier. At one point we had to close the windows because it was so cold and once the windows were closed, we could see virtually nothing, except the raindrops on the glass. It wasn’t like that all the time, there were times along the way when we could have the windows open and look out at the mountains. The views were utterly breathtaking, beautiful, I’m so glad I took that holiday because I don’t thing there would be another way to see the sights we saw that day. I can only imagine what it would be like with better visibility.  When we reached the end of the line we were instructed to make our way to the coach park and re-board the coach. On the way to the coach we noticed a row of pillars, some sort of statues or sculptures made out of local slate; they just stood there shining in the rain with a look of stoic majesty.

And that’s all I’m going to write for now. In this part of the journey I think the pictures tell the story better than words, and there are lots of pictures here, who needs more words ?  

 

 Tomorrow I'll do a tiny village with a sculpture of a gorilla ( no idea why) and another fantastic sunset over rhyl beach.