Virtual Railfan Tour UK - Aberystwyth - Vale of Rheidol Railway

On the front at Aberystwyth

Aberystwyth is easily reached by train from Shrewsbury - just make sure you are in the right part of the train at Machynlleth otherwise you will find yourself going up the Cambrian coast towards Pwllheli - which we will be doing in a few day's time. Seated comfortably on the right hand side we can look out for the osprey's nest just before Dovey Junction.  Aberystwyth is a holiday town as well as a university town and a railway enthusiasts' destination
The Network Rail station has seen better days - the bar and restaurant area has been completely netted over to keep out the pigeons - or to keep in the drinkers

But we have come first to see the Vale of Rheidol Railway which is very close to the main line station.

The line has two of the original steam locomotives in steam

The third (No. 7) was being extensively rebuilt

The Vale of Rheidol Railway was included in the 1948 nationalization being part of the Great Western Railway. It functioned mainly as a tourist operation between Aberystwyth and Devil's Bridge. It is the same gauge as the Ffestiniog-Welsh Highland Railways (1foot 11 5/8 inches).


For Canadians it may be strange to see the oil keepers plugged with corks but this was common UK practice.

The Vale of Rheidol is now a commercial railway with a well equipped machine shop

I went specially on one of the open days to see this ex South African Beyer Garratt which Paul and I saw in a garden railway near Brugg, Switzerland. It was too big for the Swiss operation but ideal for the Vale of Rheidol with its difficult gradients. It should be in operation soon , if not already


Quite often you can see visiting locomotives at Aberystwyth such as Britomart on the coal wagon.

Before going up the line there is time to catch a pint and a pork pie crusted with Shropshire cheese and take a look around the town

There is a cliff funicular railway




There are good views over the town from the hillside terminus.  

Video of the Cliff railway

This video covers getting steam up on the locomotive

Next we will take a ride up to Devil's Bridge

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Railfan Tour of Switzerland - Wednesday - Zurich Hauptbahnhof Part One

Image
Zurich Hauptbahnhof  Paul has prepared some extensive notes and photos of the Zurich Hauptbahnhof.  This will be in several parts.  The busiest station in Switzerland is Zurich Hauptbahnhof (Zurich HB) which is used primarily by the SBB. It has 26 tracks serving almost 3000 trains daily and it is one of the busiest stations in the world. It was built in the 1870s and is a main shopping destination as well as a transport hub. There are three levels for platforms and the "Shopville" shopping plaza.  The river Sihl river passes right through the station with platforms passing above and below the river. This shows the general layout of the station with the surrounding tram tracks shown in purple Tracks 3 to 18 are terminal tracks located at ground level, served by two side platforms and seven island platforms. These are used by long-distance trains from throughout Switzerland, and by international trains. Tracks 21 and 22 are underground terminal tracks, served by a sing...
Read more

Coming Home - Wrap Up - Sunday 15 Setember 2024

Image
This video, by Noel Wyler,  shows what we have just missed. Last Saturday (14 September) the Oensingen Balsthal  Railway organized an event to commemorate 60 years of the Re 4/4 locomotives. They brought together 24 of them and ran them as one train. Paul and I flew home on KLM from Schiphol Airport. We took a train from Den Haag directly to the airport. The trip back was marred by a couple with a young boy who was obviously teething. He cried almost continuously for the full six hours. I found I could tune him out when I dug deep into the KLM sound system and found a treasure trove of classical music. Bach violin concertos, Mozart piano concerto No. 23, Beethoven symphonies, Schuman etc. We survived the stupidities at the entrance of the Montreal airport and caught the KLM bus back to Ottawa where we arrived precisely on time. A good ending to a wonderful, tremendous, trip  
Read more

Travel Basel to Den Haag - Wednesday 11 September

Image
  A Dutch speciality - pancake with cheese, mushrooms and bacon. This was the only picture I took today - after we had finally arrived at Den Haag. We went early to the station at Basel  to check on our train to Dusseldorf only to find out it had been cancelled. A visit to the SBB ticket office revealed that the train hadn't actually been cancelled but was starting today from Karlsruhe. They found a connecting train leaving a little earlier which we took. This became progressively later and later so that it arrived at Karlsruhe just as the connection was about to pull out. A frantic dash across the platform and we were able to claim our seats. The journey to Dusseldorf was peculiar, There were periods when the train went fast (up to almost 200 kmph) and other periods when it dawdled. It progressively lost time except that it arrived at its final destination, Dusseldorf, eleven minutes early. (An injudicious use of recovery time in the schedule?) Dusseldorf gave us an opportuni...
Read more