Track bash July 2021

Day 3 (Tuesday)

Cardiff Central to Pwllheli

Last updated 2021-11-18

After the mess of day 1, I realized that I needed to ensure my plans had plenty of flexibility. Day 2 wasn't a problem, because it would be possible to get back to Cardiff no matter what went wrong, but other days would require more thought.

The original day 3 plan picked up the two missing Cardiff branches, then headed off to Gloucester via the "Great Way Round", then down to Bristol Parkway (I hadn't been on either line before), some fiddling around to pick up a train using the "Rhubarb" at Bristol, back up to Birmingham and Wolverhampton, and finally along the Cambrian to Pwllheli (I'd done Aberystwyth and the Vale of Rheidol line as a child.) But I was still missing the Heart of Wales, which was far more important.

As a result, today only involves three trains. First a positioning move to Llanelli, then the Heart of Wales train, which turned out to be a Dogbox - a single carriage class 153. Despite this, it was never crowded. The line lives up to its promise as a scenic route and I enjoyed the almost four hour trip. Another passenger recognized me; he'd also been on the train to Fishguard and back the day before. One brief bit of excitement on the way. One of the other passengers at Llanelli had asked if this was the train to Ammanford and, after some checking, we all agreed that it was. At Pantyffynnon I looked out to notice her standing on the platform. I waved at her to get back on but, by the time she realized the problem, the doors were shut. A railwayman on the platform was quick-witted and, although we had started to move, ran past the train and waved violently at the driver. The train stopped again (it had only moved a few metres) and, after some quick explanations, she was let back on. Later another passenger came over to me and apologized: he said that, although he'd grown up in the area, he didn't realize there was a station at Ammanford as well as one at Pantyffynnon.

At Shrewsbury I decided to take a break and spent a couple of hours having a leisurely lunch in a churchyard and taking photos of the station and lines from various viewpoints. Shrewsbury is, of course, the place where parallel signals on the various tracks are of completely different designs: platforms 3 and 4 have upper quadrant semaphores, platforms 5 and 6 have 3 aspect coloured lights with theatre indicators, while platform 7 has two miniature centre-pivoted lower quadrant semaphores with the red filter in the middle of the white stripe and the green filter above and to the right of the arm.

And then the Cambrian line. Lovely and sunny all the way except at Machynlleth, where it was raining. The train splits there and our half, the rear half, changes from 1J19 to 2J19. A number of people had got on at Shrewsbury and had to be told to move to the front half when they could.

On leaving Barmouth the train came to a sudden stop a few metres later. We then moved on, on to the single track, then stopped again. After a while the conductor announced that there was a problem with the signalling. A bit later, we started moving, but only at about 20 mph, all the way to Harlech (with three request stops on the way). I guessed, and the conductor later confirmed, that we'd lost ETRMS contact with the signalling centre and were moving under emergency regulations; the conductor said that the driver would have been dictated a movement order from Barmouth to Harlech. Once we reached Harlech all was well again (except for the train that had been waiting there for 25 minutes). Harlech has a three-way half barrier crossing, something I've never seen before. The road parallel to the railway has half barriers each side of the junction with the road that goes over the railway, rather than the latter have its own barrier on that side, so cars on that road have to wait even if they weren't going to cross the railway.

And so to Pwllheli, a fish supper, a beer, and a good night's sleep.

Today's trains table

Today's route table

New lines today

• Heart of Wales Line
• Pwllheli branch

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