NEWS UPDATE No. 124
Another record year
Saturday November 4 saw the end of the regular passenger services for the 2023 season, apart from the usual Santa Specials on December 9-10. Holy War brought in the final train to conclude a busy couple of weeks over the half term holiday, which included the increasingly popular Halloween trains on October 28 and 31.
With just two days to go, General Manager David Jones announced that the number of passengers carried during the year had exceeded the full year total for 2022, which up to that point had been the railway’s best year ever.
Noting that ‘it takes a lot of hard work from a great many people to keep the trains running and the railway going’, David said he wanted to give a ‘big thank you to all our staff and volunteers for all your help during 2023. We couldn’t have done it without you and we really appreciate your support.’ And of course, thank you to everyone who has visited us and travelled on our trains during the year.
Meanwhile, the Santa trains on December 9 and 10 are nearly sold out. If you don’t want to miss out, book your tickets now at https://bala-lake-railway.co.uk/events/santa-specials/.
Track relay
Staff and volunteers barely had time to draw breath after the finish of regular services before work got underway in earnest on the first of two major track relaying projects scheduled for this winter. This covered a 400 yard section of line through the notoriously damp cutting below the road bridge at Penybont, behind the Bala sailing club and along towards the layby before Boathouse Bridge, which was previously resleepered at the end of the 1980s.
This is the second section to be relaid with heavier 50 lb/yard rails, releasing some of the rerolled 30 lb/yard rails for reuse elsewhere. Unlike the new rails being laid at the Llanuwchllyn end of the line, the materials used here were second-hand from the West Lancashire Light Railway. The lightly-used rails had been transported to site some days before and stacked beside the line ready for use. Thomas and Rob had cut and drilled around 400 hardwood sleepers, which were delivered on November 7 with a rare steam-hauled works train headed by Holy War.
November 8 saw the Wednesday Gang making a start on dismantling the old track, removing fishplates and de-spiking. Over the weekend of November 11-12, the main working party was able to lift the rails out and remove the old sleepers so that the ballast bed could be levelled – after sundry encroaching tree roots had been cleared away. Once this had been done, the new sleepers could be positioned and the heavier rails lifted into place with the aid of a pair of rail transporters borrowed from the Ffestiniog Railway by our ever-resourceful GM.
The heavier rails are harder to position, and then screw down into place, so the track reconstruction continued at a slightly slower pace, although by Thursday November 16 the gap had been closed and the new rails reconnected to the old with some purpose-made joint fishplates. Further work is still needed, notably lining and levelling before ploughing the top ballast back into place, followed by tamping of the whole length to stabilise the track once everything has been completed.
Now that everyone has got into the swing of things, a second relay is scheduled for mid-January, when more of the new rail is due to be laid between Llanuwchllyn yard and the top of Dolfawr bank.
Lynton coaches arrive
Perhaps the biggest surprise in the past few weeks has been the donation of four additional coaches to augment the railway’s carrying capacity ready for the planned extension into Bala Town. These are a very generous gift from the Statfold Narrow Gauge Railway Trust, through negotiations with Bala Lake Railway Trust Chairman Julian Birley. Having become surplus to requirements at Statfold, the coaches were offered to the BLR, and a careful inspection confirmed that they would fit our railway very well. The Bala Lake Railway Society agreed to fund the cost of transporting the coaches from Staffordshire, and the first two were delivered to Llanuwchllyn on the afternoon of November 21; the others arrived the following day.
Although new to us, the coaches have an established pedigree, having been built by Alan Keef Ltd about 40 years ago. Eight open-sided vehicles were built for a long-disappeared theme park railway at Thorpe Park in Surrey. They were subsequently acquired by the embryonic Lynton & Barnstaple Railway preservation society in Devon. Three were deployed on the Lynbarn Railway near Clovelly from 1994, and the others were rebuilt to create four L&B-style enclosed coaches for use at Woody Bay. These served the restored railway for around 10 years until enough of the original coaches had been renovated, and were then sold on to Statfold in 2014.
Some work will be needed to ready them for service at Bala, including modifications to the airbrakes and the fitting of a handbrake in the guards’ van. Although slightly shorter than our existing vehicles, they will make a nice matching four-coach trainset with capacity for around 100 passengers.
For those who like the details, the ‘Lynton set’ is formed of:
- No1 – four-compartment Brake 3rd
- No 2 –five-compartment 3rd with one wheelchair bay
- No3 –four-compartment composite with two upholstered first class bays
- No 4 – five-compartment 3rd, same as No 2 but without the wheelchair bay.
They will probably become Nos 11-14 at Bala, following on from our existing stock.
RhLlT in Virtual Reality
A few days before the end of the season, a couple of 'Telepresence' experts from the University of Birmingham came to visit the railway at the behest of Julian Birley, scanning the line with a 360 degree camera as the basis for a virtual reality presentation.
The VR technology was apparently developed for use by the Ministry of Defence (don’t ask...), but the university team has developed a community-oriented sideline in producing VR presentations of ‘interesting’ things to entertain people who are confined to care homes and hospitals. By donning the VR goggles, people who cannot get out and about have been given the opportunity to explore such things as submarines and vintage aeroplanes.
When the professors expressed interest in having a go at scanning a narrow gauge railway, Tony Streeter of Trackside magazine put them on to Julian. Emeritus Prof Bob Stone and Dr Vish Shingari visited Llanuwchllyn towards the end of October, joining driver Peter Heywood and fireman Peter Newhouse for a trip with Winifred. The special camera was mounted on the locomotive, filming the line in both directions. The experts are also coming back to scan the inside and outside of Llanuwchllyn signalbox, including the workings of the lever frame ‘under the floor'. The resulting VR presentations are sure to give the railway an excellent publicity boost. And Julian has already signed them up to come back and record the route of the extension in due course.
So get your VR headset on and take a ride on the railway!
Don't worry if you haven't got a VR headset as you still have the ability to pan around and watch from multiple angles as you travel along.