When I was a child living in Wales, my family took summer vacations on the coast of Wales. They went to a popular spot that was close enough to home that my father could visit us while working and then take his two week vacation with us. My parents would rent a house for two months in the town of Fairbourne. It was situated on the south side of the estuary for the River Mawddach.
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One of the best features of the village was the beaches. There was a beach at the town, but by far the best beach available was the beach that ran from the village to the estuary river. It was a two mile stretch and dotted with the leftover “Dragon’s Teeth” from WWII.
Getting to the beach was made easy by use of a small gauge (12 ¼” ) railway. It ran from the village right up to Penrhyn Point, the spit made by deposited gravel and then centuries of washed up sand.
Nearly every day, either Mum or the au pair would gather us all up, all our bits and pieces plus a picnic hamper and head out to the village railway stop. We’d all pile onto the miniature rail cars and spend the next half hour watching the sights as the train chugged it’s way up the spit.
We rarely went to the end of the line. There was a ferry stop there, but we never used the ferry to Barmouth ( the other town across the estuary) that I recall. We had our favourite spot just over halfway up the spit. The train had about three stops along the two mile trip. We didn’t swim in the sea. Most people didn’t. The water is too cold to really enjoy a bathe in the sea without a wetsuit on. We just paddled occasionally and build sandcastles or checked out tide pools...or played chase with other kids and dogs.
But the little railroad in Fairbourne is by no means tho only miniature railway in Wales. There are many of them. All mostly built during Victorian times to encourage and facilitate tourism. At first they were horse-drawn trams and then later converted to rail lines.
One of the more famous miniature railways takes passengers up the steep climb to various stops up Mount Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa — pronounced Yir Wythva ) the highest peak in Wales. People found it far too taxing to hike up the mountain and it was such a tourist draw, the government finally decided to build a rail line to take visitors up the challenging mount.
There are several other lines as well. Most are situated in northern and coastal Wales. Wiki again provides a list of all the lines available: en.wikipedia.org/… And provides a history on each rail way.
Bala Lake Railway (Rheilffordd Llyn Tegid ) rides the southern shores of Bala Lake ( Welsh: Llyn Tegid), a popular holiday spot with a nice town nearby. It’s four miles long and a mile wide...one of the largest lakes in Wales. I saw the lake frequently, as it was on the way to Fairbourne and to Holyhead in Anglesea where I’d catch the ferry to Ireland a few times a year.
Another railway, Ffestiniog Railway (Welsh: Rheilffordd Ffestiniog — pronounced Rheelforth Festiniog) , began life as a horse-drawn line bringing slate from the quarries in Blaenau Ffestiniog to the port town of Porthmadog, Gwynedd, Wales. Originally the loaded wagons were send downhill by gravity and empty wagons hauled uphill by horses ( that travelled with the train on it’s downward journey...along with a couple of brakemen who controlled the speed of the “train”). Later in the 1860’s steam locomotives were introduced and thus began a history of a hundred and fifty years of operations with many changes and restorations along the way. The line is now a part of Snowdon National Park.
There are several others that I am not familiar with. You can check them out at the link and explore the places they travel: en.wikipedia.org/…
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OTHER LINKS:
Sweet blog of a stuffed bear doing tours on the Little Trains of Wales: www.mindfullybertie.org.uk/…
A Pinterest board on the Great Little Trains of Wales: www.pinterest.ca/...
The funicular at Aberystwyth: www.atlasobscura.com/...
A fun video of all the various locomotives that Fairbourne Railway uses. There is no voice-over and it’s 20 minutes long:
Another 20 minute video of all the Great Little Trains of Wales. Again, no voice-over.