News in brief for staff, volunteers and supporters of the Ffestiniog & Welsh Highland Railways December 2013

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1 News in brief for staff, volunteers and supporters of the Ffestiniog & Welsh Highland Railways December 2013 Introduction This monthly newsletter is distributed to those who request it by and it will also be accessible from the main website at Diary and event information will remain on the online site. Feel free to print this document in order that people without web access can read it. Contributions, details of group meetings etc to or More awards for F&WHR Following last month s award recognising the F&WHR as the top visitor attraction in North Wales, the railway has been recognised a further three times. The slate milestone project won the Volunteers Award in the National Railway Heritage Awards at which the 3,000 project was mentioned by presenter Loyd Grossman in the same breath as the 640 million refurbishment of King s Cross. The project was coordinated by members of the Dee & Mersey group and had been supported by FRHG over the last ten years. Replica milestones have been installed in original sockets in walls and cairns along the railway at their correct locations. Much research has taken place into locating the original milestones as some are now in museums. Pictured (top) are FRS Chairman Howard Wilson, Mike Rayner from the Dee & Mersey Group, project leader Steve Wilson, the NHRA s John Ellis and Loyd Grossman. Meanwhile, as Ffestiniog Travel embarks on its 40th Anniversary year in 2014 it ends 2013 on a high note after being named runners up in the Telegraph Travel Awards 2013 for Best Rail Tour Operator. Losing out to the Orient Express, FT shared a commendation and runners up title with the Rocky Mountaineer so we re in very good company! At the awards ceremony lunch, held at The Shard in London, TV personality and ex MP Gyles Brandreth (pictured above with Maria Cook) shared his own complimentary views about FT and the F&WHR as he presented the awards. You can see what he had to say in a video clip on FT's website at We would like to thank our loyal customers and Telegraph readers for voting for us in these prestigious awards. We hope to go one better next year as part of our 40th Anniversary celebrations!

2 Meanwhile, in the 2013 Heritage Railway Association Awards, Eileen Clayton has been awarded a Highly Commended Certificate for instigating and helping to run, for twenty one years, a week of activities on the Ffestiniog Railway designed to get young people involved with heritage railways and for providing a valuable example to all heritage railways on how it should be done. The award will be presented at a gala dinner to be held at the Bath Guildhall Banqueting Room on the evening of Saturday 8th of February 2014 during the weekend of the Heritage Railway Association Annual General Meeting. New Infrastructure Department appointments Dafydd Thomas We are pleased to announce that Dafydd Wyn Roberts has been appointed Lineside Supervisor for both lines. Dafydd was previously a Permanent Way track technician based at Dinas; having given 11 years previous to the railway. He lives at Rhyd Ddu, know the area well and is a fluent Welsh speaker, which will be an added bonus in dealing with our neighbouring landowners. Dafydd will be based at both at Dinas and Minffordd according to the requirements of the job and reports to Alun Tomlinson Dave Owen has been appointed interim Permanent Way Track Technician based at Dinas. Dave was previously with Greenlight Training, also based at Dinas. Carriage Cleaning Hazel Prent The working parties held in November and December meant that the Santa trains on both railways looked great for our important visitor and his guests. Many thanks to all those who took part. The next working parties are on 11 th January, 6 th February and 1 st March, and will focus on spring cleaning carriages ready for the next season. There are many tasks involved and these can be matched to the people taking part. People volunteering on other days will also be made welcome! for more details: hprent@ffwhr.com Harbour rebuild Ian Hartill Contracts have been placed with Gelli Civil Engineering of Llanfrothen to start on January 6 th. Track laying 27 th to 30 th Dec. on new number 5 siding, plus track to next turnout. Work from 3 rd to 6 th Jan & beyond to lift rails and S&T equipment from old station. Some to return to stock, other parts to be moved to new station area for re use. We still need more help with completing S&T work, pulling in cables, making & fitting detector parts to the new turnouts. Ballasting & packing tracks that have already been laid. Track lifting on the Cob, in preparation for re sleeping from the Boston Lodge end, will commence during the first week of January.

3 Planned work at Harbour Station during January 2014

4 What do you do in the winter then? Hazel Prent This is a question I often get asked. On the railway that never sleeps there is plenty to keep me busy operating and looking after the winter trains as well as giving as many carriages as possible a spring clean after the hard use they get during the main season. With the big push this winter to build a new station in time for next Season, however, I have been borrowed by S & T for a couple of months, resurrecting skills learned as a carriage electrics volunteer to assist the signalling engineers in a wide variety of tasks. One of my main projects has been wiring up the refurbished lever frame that has pride of place in the new signal box. This is a fantastic piece of engineering and as a signalman it is fascinating to be able to know it literally inside out. It is a Westinghouse L frame dating from It was originally installed in Darlington South signal box, where it had a few more levers than the 12 we are restoring (155!). Saved from the scrap man by Pete Burke and safely stored in the care of the Embsay and Bolton Abbey Steam Railway, it has been kindly donated to us for this project. The next milestone in this project is the challenge of taking apart the old signalling equipment in the short gap between the New Year train and the arrival of the contractors to build the rest of the new platform. This historic working party will take place on the 3 rd, 4 th and 5 th of January, and anyone able to help will be most welcome. No special skills required. Tim Prent tprent@ffwhr.com if you want to join in the fun.

5 January opening hours Clare Britton The last trains from the old Harbour Station run on Wednesday 1 st January. As soon as trains have finished, the station and car park will be handed over to the Harbour Station Redevelopment so that work can continue in earnest. Porthmadog booking office will be open Monday to Friday, 0900 to 1700 in January for enquiries and forward bookings. Porthmadog shop will be closed for stock taking on 2 nd and 3 rd of January, then open Monday to Friday There will only be a skeleton staff in each place as we have quite a few projects of our own on the go and we have also offered our help to the track and construction teams. Please bear with us if you can t get through first time or your takes a day or two for a response. Spooner s cafe is also undergoing major refurbishment but the bar will still be open, accessed from the road end door. They will be offering Sunday carvery and cheap week day lunches and snacks throughout January. Spooner s opening hours are as follows: Food: Sunday Tuesday Wednesday Saturday Bar: Monday Friday Saturday Sunday Roy s Bench Clare Britton As a pleasant and welcoming station, Blaenau is sadly lacking, I am sure you would all agree. Someone who was acutely aware of its faults was Roy Woods who worked there every summer but who sadly died suddenly at the end of October. Roy s wife Jan is raising money to put bench or benches on the platform in memory of Roy. We have commissioned local artist and former FR employee Howard Bowcott to create up to three benches similar to those in the town centre. These will not only be a very fitting tribute to Roy but will be a noteworthy piece of art and very useful for our passengers. If you would like to make a donation to this appeal, please download the gift aid form and send with a cheque, to Clare Britton at Harbour Station. The form can be downloaded from Euros Roberts Clare Britton Long serving member of staff Euros Roberts has left the company as the post of Caernarfon Station Supervisor reverts to a seasonal post. Euros first started work as a station clerk at Caernarfon in 1999 working for Ffestiniog Travel who ran the booking offices at that time. He joined the permanent staff in 2001 working in Caernarfon during the season, then taking leave and helping in Porthmadog in the winter. Attempts at developing winter trains on WHR from Caernarfon proved disappointing so apart from the excellent Santa trains and Christmas week, there are no plans to try again in the near future. This year, there are no trains at all running from Harbour Station after January 1 st until the station reopens in late March so there is no requirement to man the shop all the time. I would like to thank Euros for his hard work and dedication over the years and wish him well for the future.

6 WHR Carriage 2046 rolled out New WHR 3 rd Class standard saloon Car 2046 is now complete and is due to be moved to Dinas on the shuffle train on 2 nd January ready for use on service trains. Coming down the track, the programme to update the FR core fleet continues with three new carriages funded by the FR Trust. In late 2014, Car 119, a new FR standard saloon will replace the existing steel bodied 119 and utilise its bogies and other recyclable components, followed in early 2015 by new service car 125 (similar to the existing car 124) and 101, a new 1 st Class observation car. On the WHR, one of the current 12 metre saloons will be converted to become 2091, a sister to 2090, providing extra toilet facilities and the WHRS is in the process of setting up an appeal to fund the next 13 metre standard saloon, Welsh Pony appeal John Powell The current balance (including Gift Aid) stands at 14, The envelopes are keeping the fund ticking over, hopefully we have sufficient funds to take the locomotive apart and then we will be able to make a realistic estimate of the cost of restoration to working order. Watched the Journeys? now experience them! If you were inspired by the latest series of BBC2's Great Continental Railway Journeys Ffestiniog Travel has again created replica rail breaks based on each of the recent six episodes in Series Two of the show which you can find here. Each package follows Michael Portillo s route through Europe, guided by his trusty 1913 Bradshaw railway guide. All episodes took in some interesting sights as Portillo ventured through France, Spain, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Italy and even Gibraltar. Ffestiniog Travel can plan tailor made, individual GCRJ breaks by arranging similar and additional sightseeing stops and tourist visits at any of the destinations.

7 Media news The F&WHR starts the New Year in fine style by featuring in the first episode of a major new Network ITV series, A Great Welsh Adventure with Griff Rhys Jones. The show runs on ITV1 at 2000 on Monday nights starting on January 6 th with the episode on Snowdonia and featuring a run up the FR in vintage stock behind Prince. Incidentally, the total number of media hits for 2013 stands at 549 (just short of last year s figure), but with a record 39 TV and 10 radio appearances during the year and a very satisfying 44% of all coverage appearing in mainstream media rather than the specialist railway press. John Pratt an appreciation by Adrian Gray The sudden, tragic, death of John Pratt in November has deprived the FR of an enthusiastic member of the Kids Training Week support team and Boston Lodge of an equally enthusiastic loco volunteer. John first came to the FR on a student placement for his Engineering degree; he was posted to Glanypwll to work with Andy Putnam and almost immediately found himself shunting stock with one of Andy s pet Simplexes, an experience that few of his peers would have shared! The FR worked its usual magic and, in 2006, John used his summer vacation to join Kids Week as an enthusiastic, if slightly diffident, young adult volunteer. John s easy nature and enthusiasm for both the FR and Kids Week meant that he was swiftly assimilated into the team and he returned every year since. After completing his qualifications and beginning work as a Maths teacher in Spalding, Lincolnshire, John transferred from the daily project work to become an important member of our team of house parents, forging a highly effective triple act with Glyn Evans and Lyn Cresswell and gaining respect and appreciation from all the Kids he helped care for. As a student and, later, as a teacher, John was able to make good use of his long summer holidays to extend his volunteering, after Kids Week, by transferring to Boston Lodge to work on the locos and train as a fireman. John had a lively and enquiring mind and I well recall Kids Week lunch and break times when he would quiz me about aspects of the FR s heritage and I was very pleased when he joined the FR Heritage Group. That same lively and enquiring mind sometimes caused him to, ever so politely, question the status quo when John thought he might have observed an aspect of a project that could be done better, or more efficiently, by a slightly different method. More often than not, he had a point! A measure of John s enthusiasm for the FR and Wales may be gained from the knowledge that he was putting heart and soul into learning the Welsh language. This was no academic exercise but a determined effort to make himself eligible to apply for jobs in local schools so he could be closer to the railway and be even more involved in the Ffestiniog Family that he found so welcoming and amenable. Roger van Praet s memories of trips with John as his fireman and conducting their business in Welsh to help him practice were both typical of John s enthusiasm and deeply poignant. We mourn a life cut far too short and give thanks for John s contributions to our shared passion, the Ffestiniog Railway.