Wrack and Ruin

Moelwyn Tunnel

(From Gwynedd Railways by Mike Hitches.)
Quite an old picture of the southern Moelwyn portal on the Festiniog. I like the wildness of this location, and the simplicity of the shot: track, tunnel mouth, walls, hills, figure, all captured straight on. The old tunnel is quite an evocative location, since it was in use only for the "historical" part of the FR's life, and had to be abandoned after preservation due to a new pumped water scheme and lake at the other end. Even if it's never used again, the remaining alignment and portal are unlikely ever to be removed.

The caption accompanying the reproduction of this photograph in the first edition of Winton's The Little Wonder says:

"The southern entrance to the fabled Moelwyn Tunnel, now blocked up. The locker to the right is about where the Deviationists tunnel mess now stands. The figure in FR uniform is Dillus the Bearded."

However, the photograph and reference is missing from the revised edition. Googling for Dillus only turns up references to a character in Welsh mythology, so I do wonder if someone was pulling Winton's leg on this (or he is pulling ours), as no other reproduction of the image names the figure. The Festiniog did have its resident Welsh bard though, Gwilym Deudraeth, the stationmaster at Dduallt. The lonely, desolate atmosphere of this place was said to drive stationmasters mad at regular intervals, causing them to be quietly removed from their position, so it might well have suited a bard seeking a turbulent relationship with the landscape.

The area on the left was initially a halt with a passing place for traffic. It therefore represents an early example of Festiniog dereliction which, as you might imagine, certainly pushes my buttons.

Platforms

Now here's a fine narrow gauge station platform (from the Messenger Bradford Barton book again), which is to say, not much of a platform at all. Barely a raised mound of earth with rough slate edging, this was Abergynolwyn station on the Talyllyn prior to its rebuild by the preservation society.

The minimal, stone-built shelter adds to the effect. One still sees echoes of it in the little stone bus shelters that pepper the sides of remote Welsh roads and villages. Indeed, the old Esgairgeiliog station on the Corris currently is a bus shelter until the trains return. Of course, earth platforms and small huts arel a cinch to model, which appeals to lazy people like me.

But hold on, how about...no platform at all? The old Welsh Highland dispensed with them altogether, such as at Beddgelert station (picture from Branch Lines Around Portmadoc, 1923-46 by Mitchell & Seymour). (The new WHR, of course, has proper tarmac platforms, even if the budget isn't yet there for the buildings on them.) This is possibly even more appealing (reminder: laziness), although I guess it means that strictly speaking, all the coaching stock ought to feature running boards or steps.

Stations

Here's a wonderfully moody shot of Aberllefenni station on the Corris Railway, from Humphrey Household's Narrow Gauge Railways - Wales and the Western Front. The conditions here are very typically Welsh, and particularly so in the gathering twilight. This is definitely the last train.

By way of comparison, here's Aberllefenni again (from Discovering Britain's Little Trains by Julian Holland), after closure of the station and shortly prior to closure of the entire line. Dig that crazy track camber.

(I once visited the main Corris terminal while on holiday twenty years ago, and recall being fairly unimpressed by the rotting sleepers and ramshackle infrastructure for what was supposed to be the "newest preservation project". Fortunately, the Corris revival appears to be in much better shape nowadays, but there's still something about it that is refreshingly crude and untidy compared to the overengineered, almost slick presentation of the new WHR further north.)

From his account, Household endured quite an inclement week exploring the Welsh lines in August 1925. This picture of the Talyllyn's Pentre halt, from which the last train has obviously long gone, looks similar, although the structure is even less impressive than the Corris's. However, the platform is still rather too smart for my tastes; I have a shot of the TR's Abergynolwyn station, before its rebuild, that is much more the ticket, which I will post in due course.

Where chickens roam

Here's the picture of Tan-y-grisiau station on the FR between closure and revival. I particularly like the grass and the chickens on the line.

This is from More British Narrow Gauge Steam - A Second Pictorial Survey by M. J. Messenger, published by D. Bradford Barton in 1974. An essential purchase for the narrow gauge fan - lots of copies floating around Abebooks, although the first volume appears rather harder to obtain now (fortunately, I snapped one up some time ago).

What I particularly like about this scene is that, despite the general air of abandonment, you feel like the railway could be brought back into use with only a little clearing up. Were I to stumble across it, I'd be seized by the urge to grab the nearest platelayers trolley, braked wagon or Simplex and head on up the line to see what else is still intact. This indeed is pretty much what happened once the preservation society took ownership; read the accounts of some of the early exploration and salvage trips up towards Blaenau in John Winton's The Little Wonder.

Chasing the wisps

I was planning an entry on the prototype. Nothing exhaustive, but nothing too generalised either - pretty much any book of "old photos of Welsh narrow gauge lines" will provide plenty of examples of the kind of thing I'm aiming at. Instead, I was hoping to pick out a few key photographs that particularly evoke the atmosphere I find most appealing (keywords: dereliction, ramshackle, overgrowth, basic, minimalist, melancholy, rack, ruin).

Unfortunately, I've been somewhat stymied by the fact that almost all the photos I've got in mind only appear to exist in books, or at least are not readily amenable to a quick google. That will mean some scanning (fair use rules, guv), which I don't have time to do at present. I might settle for a literal description of a few, and you'll have to take my word for it as to their emotional tug.

In the meantime, the Festiniog at least have an active heritage group who are making some effort to put their archives online. Have a look at some beautiful photos of the Old Moelwyn Tunnel amidst, and rapidly becoming part of, the landscape here.

Update, 2008-10-15: Richard suggests something like this and this, both of which are spot-on, particularly with the wobbly track snaking its way through the long grass. I think I really will have to make an effort with those scans, as a set of reference pictures would be useful.

How to build a railway

After carefully rejecting all but one of the possible construction methods out of hand, I've settled on the most basic option of floating the track on a bed of gravel.

However, along the way I looked at the iGRS Fleximounts, which let you sacrifice most of the gravel at the expense of fixing the track to intermittent anchor points using a clever sprung base that still lets it move a little (for expansion, etc.). When I say "expense", I mean that you convince yourself this is the easy answer right up until the point you calculate the cost of the number of Fleximounts required, at which point you beat a hasty retreat. (Clue: almost double the cost of a length of track.)

That said, I still like the idea of fixing the track down at certain points to help keep it in place. I reckon I could get most of the benefit at a much lower cost by screwing it loosely to bricks using various washers. It wouldn't be a sprung mount, but it would give a little play for expansion.

There again, Richard simply laid his track on the grass initially. And James of gardenrailway blog fame laid his unfixed on top of paving blocks (you can see the track lift and drop as trains pass on his videos, but it does work). So clearly the trench idea, as a degree beyond those constructions, should work adequately.

Given this direction, I've knocked up a small spreadsheet to get some idea of the cost, which is currently coming in at under two hundred pounds. (That doesn't include a few arguably non-critical items like um, trains. No sense scaring the horses yet.) The largest cost - more than half - is track and, as it's cheapest when bought in packs of twelve yards and half-circles of curves, I'll need to purchase it all in one go - that will be the point of no-return. In the meantime, I have a daily eBay saved search for second hand track.

Incidentally, the track will be Peco Streamline flexible track for the straights and Set-track curves for the corners; the latter because it's guaranteed to be in gauge on a tight corner, unlike the flexible stuff which tends to narrow slightly when bent. I'm not ecstatic about the 2'6" radius corners, but I can't see how to avoid them without some serious garden remodelling. In that case, better to avoid further trouble. See, I'm already an expert. <sob>