I have been fortunate enough to witness the renascence of a short lived railway who’s existence lived in the memories of those old enough to have seen it and photographic images of diminutive little tank engines dwarfed by the surrounding mountains. This was a railway built through the stunning Snowdonia landscape to carry slate at a time when demand was falling, in the days before mass tourism was able to give it a second chance, the last passenger train ran on 5th September 1936. Please click on this link for a short history - www.festrail.co...
Back in my childhood days my grandfather told me the path we were walking along through the Aberglaslyn Pass used to be a railway, I didn’t know whether to believe him or not as apart from the tunnels there was little evidence of a railway. Beddgelert became a place I visited many times, as I read books about the Welsh Highland Railway and various groups talked about reopening the line. At that time the Ffestiniog Railway was still being restored to Blaenau Ffestiniog and the rebirth of WHR seemed little more than an unrealistic dream.
By October 1997 the sheer perseverance and determination by the enthusiast community cumulated in the first public trains running over the former standard gauge formation of the LNWR line from Caernarfon to Afonwen as far Dinas Junction, the original terminus of the WHR.
I visited the line regularly from 1998 to the present day taking photographs and video to record the realisation of something that I had considered to be an impossible dream. In this video I compare some of the photos and video taken from past visits with a ride over todays completed line.
Music: ES_Easy in the Neighbourhood 9 - Johan Hynynen - epidemicsound.com
14 окт 2024
