Virtual Railfan Tour UK - Talyllyn Railway


If on the train from Machynlleth we turn right(north) at Dovey Junction we will go along the Cambrian Coast line and gt off at Tywyn (formerly Towyn)

The Talyllyn railway is a 2'3" railway built originally to bring slate down to the Tywyn Wharf for transfer to the main line railway. It is one of the first, if not the first, railway preservation schemes and it is notable as not having closed, the preservation group taking over from the original owner. The line used small locomotives and this has continued to this day.  The original preservation railway went to Abernolwyn but was extended a short distance back to Nant Gwernol.

Tywyn Wharf is a short distance from the main line railway station. The workshops are at Pendre.  
A couple of observations. Tywyn seems to have more churches than pubs.  Before you go find out what the railway is doing that day. The last time Paul and I went there was a Thomas the Tank Day and all the locomotives had silly faces on the smokeboxes.
The Talyllyn has been in operation for a long time
Dolgoch at Tywyn Wharf station in 1985

No. 3, Tywyn, Another shot taken in 1985 - note the lady guard.  

Tal Y Llyn at Tywyn Wharf station

This is a coach formerly on the Glyn Valley Tramway, nicely preserved.
The works at Tywyn Pendre

The shed is empty so all the trains are out on the line

At Bryn Glas there is a block post

Passing a train at Bryn Glas

Taking water at Dolgoch

The tank at Dolgoch


Slate fences are a feature of this line.  However, they don't always keep out the sheep which may delay a train while the fireman chases them off the right of way

Thick vegetation

No. 6 Douglas at Abergwynolwyn in 1961

The end of the line at Nant Gwernol

Back at Tywyn there is an excellent narrow gauge museum.  This is a narrow gauge locomotive from the Guinness Brewery in Dublin. A type of Irish gauge cradle was also built for it - it could run into the cradle and become a standard gauge locomotive

At Tywn=yn Wharf there is always something interesting to watch such as Tal Y Llyn

There are many good videos available 

Cab ride over the line

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