Steam Train Driving in Wales by David Cawley

It’s 4:00 pm and the Celtic weather Gods look down on the Snowdonia region of Wales and are in fine mood. The sun is beating down and except for the scatterings of travelling puffs of black smoke trails dotting the mountainous and coastal landscape there’s barley a cloud in the sky.

This is narrow gauge railway country where a series of routes that once carried slate, copper, gold and silver from mines and quarries in the Welsh hillsides have reopened to allow tourist and rail enthusiasts to relive some of the “glory days” of steam in this part of the UK.

One route, run by Welsh Highland Heritage Railway, has taken enthusiasm for steam one step further. At the end of each Saturday, the keen, curious and bold can take to the footplate (cab) and actually try their hand at driving a train; hook it up to carriages, pull them, disconnect and shunt the engine round the other side for further pulling action. Come the end of the adventure and despite the heat and dirt, many are so entranced they even offer to help ‘ash-out’ and ‘coal-up’ for the next day.

After weeks of anticipation it was now my turn to join and get acquainted with ‘Gelert’, the tank engine.

Getting to Grips with Gelert

Described as "like controlling a car using the taps on your bath”, you’re confronted once on the footplate by a series of dials, wheels and levers and in Gelert’s case,  oily rags, vast coffee mugs, sun tan lotion and the beaming faces of  David Pritchard (driver) and David Ruston (firemen)
Presented with the regulator (speed control), reverser (direction); air brake, hand brake and whistle chain the time had come to gently coerce ‘Gelert’ out of the station and smoothly up the track.

Reverser set forward, check; hand brake off with three or four rotations, check.  Blow the whistle (very satisfying) and look out on both sides of the track to confirm know one has spotted who was now in control and was about to leap off in panic, then open up the regulator to trundle forward, keeping a watchful eye on the pressure gauges.

Almost immediately 16 tons of chuffing engine slowly rumbled away from the platform and set off at 8km/h away from the Irish Sea towards the mountain dominated horizon. Up the track to the next station which also houses the lines museum and workshop and it’s time to un-hook the carriages and shunt the engine to the other side for some reverse pulling.

Unfortunately, once back on the other side of the carriages, it had become apparent that I’d parked them on a slight bend in the track, making hitching any locomotive up to them almost impossible. To complicate things further, ‘Gelert’ then decided the day had been long and hot enough without some amateur making it worse for her and she refused to budge from the spot...I’d broken her.

Through a series of gentle coaxing and mumbled curses, both David’s eventually managed to persuade her to move again, shunt the carriages onto the straight and pull them for one last time that day. Earlier Stephen Williams, historian and that day’s guard and guide memorably said, in a tongue-in-cheek manner in keeping with attitudes of bygone days, “Steam engines are like women, temperamental. If they don’t want to play, they won’t, which is why they are always called she.”

Semi-Retirement for a Steam Train

To continue this rather dubious comparison and for those with mind for such things, Gelert’s vital statistics are works number 3050 from W.G. Bagnall Ltd., Stafford, England. Built in 1953 and fitted with a 0-4-2 wheel arrangement to occupy 60cm gauge rail, she comes with a 480 gallon tank on the side and has a heating surface of 298 sq ft. Originally ‘Gelert’ spent her working life in the platinum mines of South Africa before being semi-retired on the coastal town of Porthmadog to pull tourists and wannabe train drivers up and down the line.

Having repaired ‘Gelert’ and gently persuaded her that the man in control didn’t really mean any harm, she returned back to the platform and we both parted company exhausted but on friendly terms.

Leaving the two David’s to deal with the hard labour and dirty business of putting ‘Gelert’ to bed for the night; I set off in search of how to get high in Wales.  The Snowdon Mountain Railway offers a ride to the tallest mountain in England and Wales, Mount Snowdon. Built in 1896 for tourists unwilling or unable to make the three hour, 7.53 km hike to the summit from Llanberis, the round trip train option takes two and half hours and includes 30 minutes at the peak to drink in the glorious views.

Alas riding in the footplate is not allowed here, however if requested it is possible to sit with the guard in his private compartment.  Accompanied by ‘newbie’ guard Stephen Williams - a mine of information and conviviality – he told me his main role was to be vigilant and sometimes proactive in persuading sheep not to lay down and start dozing flat across the rail tracks.

From the stunning natural ceiling of the Welsh world, it’s also possible to get into the country’s deep basement by train too. The Llechwedd Slate Caverns offer tramway tours with former miners guides into the subterranean heart of darkness where once 19th century men and boys worked in appalling and dangerous conditions digging out slate to roof the industrial and domestic world.

The steam trains of Wales are now busier than ever they were during their heyday with 2010 a particularly special year as nearby Talyllyn Railway celebrates its 50th anniversary and kudos as the world’s first preserved heritage railway. While the excitement of taking control of one of these beasts in action doesn’t rouse everyone’s spirit, the sight of whole families milling around the various platforms and cramming in to carriages clearly shows the affection for steam travel is increasingly potent, especially when puffing through such dramatically gorgeous scenery.