£1.85m restoration for railway viaduct between Porthmadog and Minffordd

Rail Advent reports:

Network Rail has announced that restoration work on the Traeth Mawr Viaduct begun on Saturday 13th February.

As part of a multi-million project to upgrade the Cambrian Line, Network Rail has chosen Traeth Mawr to help improve the overall line.

The work will take place over a nine-day closure of the railway.

Work will include the replacement of wooden timbers, which Network Rail says is the main priority.

And why am I passing this on? Because I once got eaten alive by mosquitos taking a photo of this very viaduct, that's why.

Blaenau Ffestiniog

At the other end of the Ffestiniog Railway from Porthmadog stands Blaenau Ffestiniog. This little town is dominated by the relics of the slate industry and is now trying to make a living from tourism, even though it was pointedly excluded when the boundaries of the Snowdonia National Park were drawn.

The slate industry must have been enormously profitable at one time. The little railways that traverse the landscape of North Wales were built to service it, and the standard guage Conway Valley line that links the town with the coast almost at once dives into a two-mile tunnel.

British Pathe takes the Ffestiniog Railway

In 1964 British Pathe visited Porthmadog- or Portmadoc as it was billed in those days - and the Ffestiniog Railway. Click on the picture to see the resultant film on the Pathe website.

That website also has eight minutes of silent black-and-white footage on the Ffestiniog Railway's centenary, shot the previous year.

A couple of days ago I said I would go back to Porthmadog one day to take the Welsh Highland Railway. The nice people who run it read that post and have offered me a footplate pass when I do.

A trip to New York, a Domino's voucher and now this. There is a lot to be said for writing a blog.

The Ffestiniog Railway

I left Porthmadog by way of the Ffestiniog Railway.

Last time I travelled on it, in 1977, the line was open only as far as Dduallt. The last stretch into Blaenau Ffestiniog had been lost when the Central Electricity Generating Board created the Tanygrisiau reservoir in 1954. The railway people finally won compensation in 1972 after one of the longest legal cases in history. Weren't nationalised industries wonderful?

The Ffestiniog was even more spectacular than I had remembered. I will have to go back one day to try the Welsh  Highland, which sounds more remarkable still.

"We were lost, but we knew where we were"

To get to Portmeirion I caught the Ffestiniog Railway across The Cob and got off at Minfford, the first station up the line.

On the way I chatted to a retired man. He said that he could join the railway society for a few pounds a year. This meant that if the fancy took him after he had come into Porthmadog for a coffee, he could take the train to Blaenau Ffestiniog and back for no extra fare.

He had grown up in Porthmadog and he and his friends used to play in the extensive woods around Portmeirion as a boy. "We got lost. Well, we were lost, but we knew where we were."

There is something profound about the nature of play in there somewhere.

The railway bridge at Porthmadog

I rather like this picture of the bridge that carries the Cambrian Coast line over the Afon Glaslyn just outside Porthmadog and of the mountains beyond. Which is just as well, because I got eaten alive taking it.

Walking home from Portmeirion, I noticed that a footpath ran to either end of this bridge. Perhaps there was a path running across it too?

Not a bit of it, it turned out, so I had to retrace my steps. But while I was down by the river here I was bitten by lots of mosquitoes. The lumps came up the following day.

The Welsh Highland Railway reaches Porthmadog

The reliving of my summer holiday, you will recall, has reached Porthmadog. Whist there, I was intrigued by the rails of the Welsh Highland Railway running down the main street near the Harbour station. As this film shows, they are now in use.

What you are watching here is explained on the Ffestiniog Railway website:

Saturday October 30th saw the first trains ever to run from Caernarfon to Porthmadog Harbour Station. (The original Welsh Highland never achieved the final three mile link from Dinas Junction to Caernarfon).

Note, too, that the tracks cross the Cambrian Coast line on the level. I bet that took some negotiating in this age of health and safety.

There will be a regular passenger service on the Welsh Highland from April next year. But as the Ffestiniog site explains, it will be possible to get a preview of it for a week in February.

Across the Cob to Portmeirion

One reason for spending a couple of nights in Porthmadog was its proximity to Portmeirion. So the next morning I took the narrow gauge railway across the Cob and got off at the halt at Boston Lodge. From there Portmeirion is a short walk.

All the book describe Clough Williams-Ellis's model village as "Italianate", but there is also a large element of English country house fantasy about it. This part springs from the same roots at Brideshead Revisited, and indeed Portmeirion also acted as a refuge for monumental architecture deemed surplus to requirements in post-war redevelopment.

It may have arisen out of aristocratic eccentricity, but today Portmeirion is the leading tourist attraction in North Wales. And boy does it know it. You may also have heard something about a television series being filmed there...

From Shropshire to Porthmadog

After Saturday in Clun and Sunday in the Stiperstones, I left Shropshire and England on Monday, catching the train from Shrewsbury to Porthmadog. I had to stand for two or three stations, but after that it was a lovely ride.

We were passed by a steam excursion at Machynlleth and west of there the route ran through long wooded valleys until we reached the coast. It must be spectacular at this time of year.

The line splits at Dovey Junction - a strange, remote station almost in the Dovey estuary. One line runs south to Aberystwyth and the other north up the coast to Pwhelli. This is the line I took, passing through numerous small resorts until we reached Porthmadog.

I travelled there partly because of a couple of local attractions. One of those is the narrow gauge Ffestiniog Railway, which you see in my photograph crossing The Cob - a causeway across the mouth of the Afon Glaslyn - with the town in the background.

And I went partly for old time's sake. I first came here in 1977 on a coach trip with my Mum. It was the day before the public holiday to mark the Queen's Silver Jubilee and every village we passed through in Mid Wales had the bunting out.

Six of the Best 102

Andy Crick wishes Boris Johnson would go away.

While Rachel Olgeirsson has had enough emails from Cowley Street and Lib Dem Presidential candidates already.

David Maclean wonders what is going on within Leicester Labour Party: "When Vaz’s man can’t get the outright blessing of his own party members, something is up."

By banning a mildly satirical advertisement for ice cream, the Advertising Standards Authority is reintroducing a blasphemy law to Britain, argues the National Secular Society.

Tim Worstall complains we have "this crazed system whereby if at one point in your life you need a housing subsidy then you get that subsidy for all your life. To take just one example. At some point Lee Jasper qualified for a council house in London. Yet, when he was earning £100,000 a year as an advisor to Ken Livingstone he was still in that council house and still getting that subsidy."

This weekend will see the first passenger trains between Porthmadog and Caernarfon on the Welsh Highland Railway, reports the BBC North West Wales pages. The service will open to the public next spring.

Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain's Visionary Music by Rob Young

When I saw that "Winwood, Steve" came between "Winstanley, Gerrard" and "Witchfinder General" in the index, I knew that I was going to love this book. I am currently halfway through its 650 pages.

As the blurb puts it:

In this groundbreaking survey of more than a century of music making in the British Isles, Rob Young investigates how the idea of folk has been handed down and transformed by successive generations - song collectors, composers, Marxist revivalists, folk-rockers, psychedelic voyagers, free festival-goers, experimental pop stars and electronic innovators.

In a sweeping panorama of Albion’s soundscape that takes in the pioneer spirit of Cecil Sharp; the pastoral classicism of Ralph Vaughan Williams and Peter Warlock; the industrial folk revival of Ewan MacColl and A. L. Lloyd; the folk-rock of Fairport Convention, Sandy Denny, Nick Drake, Shirley Collins, John Martyn and Pentangle; the bucolic psychedelia of The Incredible String Band, The Beatles and Pink Floyd; the acid folk of Comus, Forest, Mr Fox and Trees; The Wicker Man and occult folklore; the early Glastonbury and Stonehenge festivals; and the visionary pop of Kate Bush, Julian Cope and Talk Talk, Electric Eden maps out a native British musical voice that reflects the complex relationships between town and country, progress and nostalgia, radicalism and conservatism.

An attempt to isolate the ‘Britishness’ of British music - a wild combination of pagan echoes, spiritual quest, imaginative time-travel, pastoral innocence and electrified creativity - Electric Eden will be treasured by anyone interested in the tangled story of Britain’s folk music and Arcadian dreams.

Anyone with the slightest interest in this sort of music will enjoy this Electric Eden. I bought my copy in Browers Bookshop in Porthmadog while on holiday and it will no doubt inspire some of my Sunday music videos in weeks to come.

There is also an Electric Eden blog.