THE NORTH WALES COAST RAILWAY NOTICE BOARD

Rheilffordd Arfordir Gogledd Cymru Bwrdd hysbyseb

This site is dedicated to all our regular contributors and supporters, and especially the rail staff of North Wales.

Edition of 19 November 2003

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Air Wales, well-known 'green transport' company (see 'Air news ...  then and now' below)  has announced a daily service starting on 8 December from Liverpool Airport to Cardiff and to Newcastle, 'allowing people to get to south west Wales and the North East from Merseyside in under an hour.' Southbound, the 48-seat ATR-42 aircraft starts its journey at Newcastle and continues to Plymouth. The northbound flight retraces that route with the aircraft returning directly to Cardiff from Newcastle.This is being touted by the company as a way to get from North Wales to Cardiff, although how many people will want to go to Liverpool as a way to Cardiff remains to be seen. The fare is £49 each way, although there will allegedly be Airport taxes to pay.

Meanwhile it seems that Caernarfon Airport and Welshpool (officially Montgomeryshire & Mid Wales) Airport are doing their best to get in on the act, as part of a new concept called 'Airnet Wales'. Plans are currently in the pipeline, according to the Shropshire Star)  for a 190-metre extension to the runway at Welshpool. At Caernarfon, the manager fancies some European funding to the tune of £500,000 which could provide for a new terminal and approach lights to permit passenger services. Caernarfon airport  is south west of the town on the site of the wartime RAF Llandwrog airfield. It has a fine aero museum and civilian hangar for light aircraft. The present day buildings are based around the old wartime control tower..The Welsh Air Ambulance is currently based there and current flying is pleasure flights and air training, but is a popular destination for cross country naviation exercises by civilians. Whether the population is sufficient to sustain a regular air service is a moot point but then subsidies are anticipated - the many paying for the few, one might say. Any use of Caernarfon would of course take away traffic from the proposals for Valley ...

Regarding our look back to the 1940s, George Jones writes: 'There was apparently no recorded route Valley to Liverpool in the Liverpool airport history. However, the Meccano Magazine item made me look further and much to my surprise the book Annals of British and Commonwealth Air Transport by John Stroud (which has been on my book shelf for 40 years!) did supply the answer. On 11 April 1949 BEA began Cardiff - Hawarden - Valley - Liverpool service with DH89s (Rapides). Ceased operations on 1 October 1949.

'The follow on from that was the experimental helicopter service from Liverpool to Cardiff calling at Wrexham with Sikorsky S-51 (Dragonfly known to BEA as the King Arthur class) helicopters. This began on 1 June 1950 and was the first sustained regular passenger scheduled service to be operated by helicopters. The service ceased on 31 March 1951 having operated at 96.5% regularity and 88% punctuality. It called at Plas Coch farm to the west of Wrexham near where the Homebase store is these days. I can say that one of these S51s was the first aircraft I can remember seeing in the sky and actually recognising when it flew over by grandmother's house in Allerton, Liverpool. To see a helicopter then was exceedingly rare and I was very excited by the sighting which probably triggered a lifelong interest. The airport at Cardiff was then at Pengham Moors prior to the removal of operations to the present day Rhoose airport.

'Subsequently in the early 1960s Dan-Air began a Liverpool-Cardiff route with a de Haviland Dove, later a Heron. The route was extended to operate Newcastle to Liverpool to Cardiff/Bristol with a Dakota and ultimately a Nord 262 in the 1970s before it closed as a part of a Dan-Air reorganisation of domestic services. One wonders if the present day hopefuls will have any more success with their planned internal routes. What they all need is sufficient passengers each day, every day not just on high days and holidays, if they are to be viable.' - 19 November

In a layby just outside Ruthin can be seen (picture by Dave Sallery) this short stretch of standard gauge track, one of the few reminders of the Vale of Clwyd line.  Road traffic over recent years has removed the tarmac which originally covered it.  The track formed part of a branch to the Craig-y-Ddywart limestone quarry of the Ruthin & Denbigh Tar Macadam Company, and at this point is about half a mile from the Ruthin - Denbigh trackbed.

The branch is shown above on an old OS map: it curves away from the Vale of Clwyd route at the top right of the map, and then runs dead straight before curving across the main road to the quarry.

On the modern map (Image produced from the Ordnance Survey Get-a-map service. Image reproduced with kind permission of Ordnance Survey and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland) the route of the branch can be traced, although much of it now seems to have become a drainage channel.

Bill Rear mentions this short line in his excellent book 'From Chester to Holyhead: the Branch Lines', mentioning his memory of a Class 3F 0-6-0 steam loco standing alongside the road with some wagons being loaded from a hopper, the rails being submerged under a coat of lime dust. According to the indispensible Industrial Railway Society book Industrial Locmotives of North Wales, the quarry had its own loco, a Motor Rail 'Simplex' 40 HP four-wheel petrol loco built (works no 2021) in 1920 and re-engined with a diesel engine in 1956. Perhaps BR locos had to stand in when this was out of action.  The traffic ceased around 1960, although the little loco remained on site for a few years longer; it was scrapped and most of the quarry branch was lifted in 1964-65. - 19 November

The painting of Fort William on the sign of the old station building at Porthmadog (bottom of this page) has attracted the attention of our several of our loyal correspondents (thanks everyone), all agreed on the likely solution of the mystery  - Bill Rear writes: 'Seeing the picture of  Fort William, I agree that normally ex LNER Pacific Class engines were excluded from Fort William, probably for weight restriction reasons, a Pacific Class engine did appear at Fort William, in 1956, when 72001 Clan Cameron worked a test train from Glasgow Queen Street to Fort William, followed by a Special Working for the Clan Cameron Gathering. I don't think the exercise was ever repeated. Two photographs at least are known to exist, one was used in the book 100 Years of the West Highland Railway by Dr. John McGregor.'  Edward Fletcher agrees, and adds; 'The smoke deflectors in the picture do not have the cut away at the rear carried by all but one ex-LNER Pacifics, but the Standard classes fitted with smoke deflectors all had the style shown.'  - 19 November

Christian Veen, a reader from The Netherlands, sends the above interesting picture: Christian writes:  'In 1989 following a holiday in Ireland we returned by ferry from Dublin to Holyhead at the somewhat early hour of 03:00. As the first train did not leave till 05:20 I had some time available on the station to take a couple of pictures. The camera was on the platform in order to take this long exposure shot.' - 19 November

Pullman through Manchester

Two pictures taken by Tony Miles from the classic photo location of the Umist multi-storey car park between Oxford Road and Piccadilly stations in Manchester. West Coast Railway-owned 47 854 in so-called "reverse Fragonset" livery works on the 09:25 Glasgow Central to Northampton special with the Network Rail inspection saloon at the rear of five Pullman coaches.

Passing through Manchester 15 minutes early at 13.25 on 12 November. - 16 November

Air news ...  then and now - by Charlie Hulme

Browsing through some old issues of Meccano Magazine I came across the July 1949 issue, which caught my eye as the month I was born. Among the usual collection of fascinating items is the following in J.W.R. Taylor's 'Air news' section:

The first post-war scheduled air services from Birmingham and between North and South Wales are now being operated by British European Airways. The latter service, flown by D.H. "Rapide," starts from Liverpool and flies to Cardiff via Hawarden on Monday mornings, returning via Hawarden and Liverpool to Valley (Anglesey) in the afternoon. The next day the service is reversed, terminating at Liverpool, and so on throughout the week, finishing at the Liverpool base on Saturday evening.

The other service, operated by "Dakota," starts from Manchester, and on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays calls at Birmingham on the outward flight to Paris, returning non-stop to Manchester. But on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, the process is reversed, and the aircraft flies non-stop from Manchester to Paris, calling at Birmingham on the return flight.

Opening up a North Wales airbase to commercial flights took a step forward yesterday. Flights from a civil enclave at RAF Valley could also cater for business people who face lengthy trips to Cardiff by road or rail. The use of Valley as a regional airport could also act as a new gateway to Snowdonia. Anglesey MP Albert Owen brought together key shareholders in a bid to see the military base become the principal North Wales Airport. After the meeting at Llangefni attended by representatives of the WDA, Wales Tourist Board, Anglesey Council, University of Wales and members of local businesses and tourist attractions, Mr Owen said: "We discussed a joint action plan in taking this important campaign forward. "Since our last meeting an airline has given its backing to the project, which has triggered more interest in the bid. The campaign is now entering a pivotal stage and all parties are working hard to develop the idea of bringing commercial flights to the island into a reality."

RAF Valley commanding officer Les Garside -Beattie said they were sympathetic to the idea of using the air base , which is the UK's busiest fast-jet training base [The only one!] , for commercial use. He said : "We have identified land near the main entrance which could be adopted  into a civil enclave. "The would allow the public to drive up to a building which has spare capacity and which could act as a terminal, without the need to go through the necessary security checks at the base's main gate."

Air Wales chairman Roy Thomas said the airline had held ambitions to operate a North-South link for many years. He told the Daily Post : "The first Air Wales operated a service between Cardiff and Broughton in the late 70s. We are very interested in operating a service that would link the North West with Cardiff. The flights could link in with our services to London and Brussels."

Mr Owen said that studies had revealed up to 150 people, many of them business leaders, make the journey south from North Wales to Cardiff every day. [but not necessarily from NW Anglesey presumably.] "All that is needed is about £250,000 to convert a corner of RAF Valley for civilian use, money that could come from Objective One regeneration funding. The infrastructure is already there, the radar is first class, all that's needed is to convert a building there for scanning passengers luggage. This could be up and running tomorrow. There is not a lot of investment need."

After a lapse of two years, flask trains to Trawsfynydd recommenced ten years ago in November 1993.

31 270 hauls the first train towards Dolwyddelan on a bitterly cold 5th November. The Trawsfynydd branch was still being upgraded at the time to take the new traffic, but because trains were propelled along the 6 mile branch, it was considered necessary to use bogie stock until track settled. Two bogie brake vans, Nos. SR 56283 and DS 56296, built by the Southern Railway in 1936 ran on these trains for several months.

31 238 sits on Manod Viaduct with a bridge inspection train on 15th October 1993.

31 270 standing at Llan Ffestiniog with a Sunday ballast train during upgrading of the branch on 14th November 1993.

Apparently, crews were not happy with using a single Class 31 loco and so after only a couple of workings, it was decided to double-head all Trawsfynydd flask trains. Tree-lopping was in progress around Fairy Glen (near Betws-y-Coed) as 31 200 and 31 302 approach the short tunnel at this location on 11th December 1993. - 16 November

The proposal to cart away by the train the heaps of slate waste which distinguish the Blaenau Ffestiniog area, for use as road-building aggregate, have bee in the new again recently. This idea has been kicked around for a couple of years now with no sign of anything actually happening, especially following reports that Network Rail had claimed it might cost as much as £200 million to upgrade the line to take the slate trains ... this in a line which has always been maintained to a high enough standard to take the trains of heavy nuclear flask wagons. Some observers have suggested that powers-that-be in Network Rail 'did not want' this service for some reason, and were trying to stop in by inflating costs and raising objections such as the supposed need for the trains to collect the single-line token while the loco was in the tunnel.

However, the cost of upgrading the line seems to have been revised down now to a more sensible figure, and the Welsh Assembly has promised to chip in 75% of the £20 million cost of upgrading the line. Now the project is threatened by a suspension (due to the Strategic Rail Authority running out of cash) of applications for freight facilities grants (FFG) in England, one of which would be needed to build a facility to unload the material.  But Elfyn Llwyd, MP for Meirionydd Nant Conwy and Plaid Cymru's leader at Westminster is 'optimistic that the necessary work will be done, following a meeting with Richard Bowker, the SRA' s chief executive.' Meanwhile, improvements to the Conwy Valley road are pressing on,  with widening under way between Fairy Glen and Dolwyddellen... - 16 November

Flasks of 2003

37 218 and 20 302 pause at Bangor for the camera of Aaron Taylor on a very wet 13 November.

Also present was a Jarvis track machine stabled in the old depot sidings. Aaron writes: 'I am surprised these are still connected as this whole area is due for redevelopment, and has been disused for a long time.' - 16 November

As we mentioned before, the station building-cum-pub on the platform at Porthmadog station has a rather nice painting on the end wall to attract customers, which appears to be a view of Fort William station on the West Highland Line in Scotland! Trevor Roberts has sent us a picture (detail, above) of this work of art, which certainly is a view of the old station at Fort William which was demolished in the 1970s (the station that is, not the town) when the line was cut back to make way for a road: the North British bracket signal which was such a feature of this station is well portrayed.

But judging by its smoke deflectors, the locomotive seems to be an LNER 'Pacific' of some type. Surely such a loco would have been far too heavy to work over the West Highland? - 16 November

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