Here’s a fascinating look at a 2 foot gauge Welsh railroad running a Fairlie and a Garrett…I’ll be darned if I can pronounce the town names!
Joe, . . . . WoW ! Quite and operation. And I never heard of this RR before , . . . . . Thanks for posting . . . 
I’ve been occasionally posting this RR for the last ten years.…and they not only have FOUR ex-Sarth Efrican Beyer-Garratts, but they also have the world’s very FIRST Beyer-Garratt in operation, the ex-Tasmanian Government K1.
The WHR runs from Caerarvon to Porthmadoc, and is part - the larger part - of the WHR/Ffestiniog Railway dual company that operates out of Porthmadoc in two different directions. We go there at least once a year. This is one of the B-Gs, all of them are NG/G16 class, BTW. That’s Edward Ist Caernarvon Castle in the background BTW.
The Fairlie, and there are THREE of them, runs on the Porthmadoc to Blaenau Ffestiniog section, a former slate operation that made slates for the roofs of 90% of the slated roofs on earth, shipped out of the harbour at Porthmadoc. The shops at Boston Lodge [the Porthmadoc end] and Dinas [on the WHR part] both build and repair locos and rolling stock for themselves and other lines.
If you are ever in that part of the world, it’s a MUST-DO. Youtube is full of it. Look at Ffestiniog Railway as well - the sites are also in Welsh if you are a speaker, if not, I advise you to stay way from the ‘Cymraeg’ bit.
tac
Ottawa Valley GRS
This must be the COOLEST narrow gauge in the world! Busy little trains going all over the place in some very scenic countryside! Not to take anything from those Colorado lines which are pretty dang wild too! Two places I have to go to visit!
Eric, bring Ben with you and me and my BIL will take you to some trains that you’ll REALLY love to see and ride…
Look up Brecon Mountain Railway - the Maine two-foot line in Wales…
tac
Ottawa Valley GRS
OH! The Fun!!! I recognize that as the near sister of the Sandy River and Rangely lakes 23 and 24! I was going to ask if they have snowplows on those Welch lines?
You guys can sure fill a train with passengers too! We are really happy with a hundred or so in three cars on the WW&F railway.
My wife Sue and my older son Andrew were just watching the video and remarking that we gotta get over there! Even Sue who is not so much a train girl is interested in the hiking and exploring of the area…Beautiful country! The WHR runs through the National park? gotta be some good hiking possibilities there!
Eric, #24 is nearly finished - a NEW build loco, too! The loco in the pic is actually a Pacific that was wrecked in Sarth Efrica, recovered form the docks at Port Elizabeth where it was wrecked, and bought privately to England. It’s actually an entirely privately-owned line, now around seven miles long, I think, but obviously open to the public for their enjoyment…
Ydy, Rheilffordd Ucheldir Cymru yn mynd drwy ganol Parc Cenedlaethol Eryri. Ewch oddi ar y trên ym Meddgelert, a cherdded i Fetws-y-Coed - hynny yw canolfan cerdded/heicio arall. Bwyta cinio yn y ‘Goat Inn’ ym Meddgelert, yn ei argymell!
In English - Yes, the WHR runs right through the centre of the Snowdonia NP - get off at Beddgelert for that, and walk to Betws-y-Coed, another walking/hiking centre. Eat at the Goat Inn at Beddgelert, BTW - I recommend it.
Get a load of this caboose…
.
PS - Mrs tac asks please don’t try out your Welsh pronunciation on a local. It’s not an easy language to learn, and phrase books don’t advise you that there are FERRY SDTRONG RIDJONAL ACHSENTSSSS and dialects. Stick to speaking English and you’ll be just fine - all signs are bi-lingual anyhow.
Noswaith dda.
tac
Rheilffordd o ardd ddyffryn Ottawa
tac,
I’m glad I brought it up again then. I must have missed it in past years. Very fascinating stuff and you give a great presentation of it.
I didn’t know they were building a new SR&RL 24! Man oh man some things get done right over there! We are struggling just to get and keep the old stuff running.
This is from the site - it will be called #3 -
No.3 ‘Sandy River’ Locomotive
A long term project is the construction of this new locomotive which we are building from the original Baldwin drawings of the Sandy River and Rangeley Lakes Railroad, Maine USA No. 23.This 2-6-2 heavy tender locomotive, weighing 53 tons, was originally built in 1913 and scrapped on closure of the railroad in 1936
Many parts are already made, the tender is complete to footplate level and the loco bogies, motion, spring gear, brake gear and boiler fittings are finished. The next task is to cast and machine the cylinders and erect the mainframes.
(http://www.breconmountainrailway.co.uk/uploads/images/no3---2.jpg)
I might just go on over later this year and do a progress check…
Geoff, you up for this?
tac
Ottawa Valley GRS
Watch the promo video here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLaEFvFKTWg&feature=youtu.be
Or, if you have time, this 15-minute trip…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ6CQTSCOIg
This was the first day of new extension running -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OrPtfb9-4A
tac
Ottawa Valley GRS
Tac, I loved the syncopated exhausts of the dual Fairlie pulling out with that long train!
And don’t forget to mention the US Mason Bogie is a foreign licensed version of a single Fairlie.
Tac,
The trains and the stations are beautiful. There is literally no trash to be seen on the station platforms. What pride!!
I do have a question what is that bar/hook they are using to couple the engine to the car?. I have never seen that before. Can you explain what they are??
Thanks Doc Tom
Doc,
I thought they were pretty slick too…
…but I don’t see how they go around curves!
Joe Zullo said:
Doc,
I thought they were pretty slick too…
…but I don’t see how they go around curves!
That’s a perfect picture. Wonder what they are called? When the two ?buffers? touched the fellow at track side just dropped in the connecting piece. It does appear fairly rigid and this is narrow gauge so there must be some pretty tight curves. I too wonder how this flexed to go around curves.Hoping some of the brothers from across the pond in the Isles of Britain can help us out.
Doc Tom
Joe Zullo said:
Doc,
I thought they were pretty slick too…
…but I don’t see how they go around curves!
They are called “Chopper” couplings due to their similarity in appearance to to an axe in shape. They go around corners just fine and are very good at controlling stock being propelled over switches. Us 16 mm (1:19) garden railers use them a lot on our railways when modeling UK and colonial NG.
IF you are going to have a holiday over here then make sure you go to that corner of north Wales. As well as the WHR there is its sister the Festiniog and in the same area - Welsh Highland Heritage Railway, The Snowden mountain railway, Corris, Balla Lake, Fairbourne, Llangollen (standard gauge), Great Orme Tramway, Llanberris Lake and Tallylyn. Not to mention the Welshpool and Llanfair and Vale of Reihdol are nearby. Try Googling that lot (they should pickup any of my spelling mistakes) or check on the list here http://www.heritagerailways.com/Visits_Map.php and not then rushing out and booking a holiday. I go most years, but the I’m only about 175 miles away. Max
P.S. In North Wales the locals speak Welsh amongst themselves,it’s quite normal.They are not saying rude things about you behind your back.
Here is Wikipedia’s take on “chopper couplings” also apparently called “Norwegian couplings.”
"Norwegian (or meat chopper) couplings consist of a central buffer with a mechanical hook that drops into a slot in the central buffer.[1] There may also be a U-shaped securing latch on the opposite buffer which is fastened over the top of the hook to secure it. The Norwegian is found only on narrow gauge railways of 1,067 mm (3 ft 6 in), 1,000 mm (3 ft 3 3⁄8 in) or less, such as the Isle of Man Railway, Western Australian Government Railways, the Ffestiniog Railway and the Welsh Highland Railway, Tanzania, where low speeds and reduced train loads allow a simpler system. The Norwegian coupler allows sharper curves than the buffer-and-chain, which is an advantage on those railways.
On railway lines where rolling stock always points the same way, the mechanical hook may be provided only on one end of each wagon. Similarly, the hand brake handles may also be on one side of the wagons only.
Norwegian couplings are not particularly strong, and may be supplemented by auxiliary chains.
Not all Norwegian couplings are compatible with one another as they vary in height, width, and may or may not be limited to one hook at a time."
Apparently they allow for very sharp curves and hence their use on narrow gauge lines.
Doc Tom
Thanks for the info on the couplers. All very unusual ( to us here state side ) an interesting . . . .
Well, its axiomatic that those chopper couplers allow for tight curves, the question is: how?
As ever, Wiki is partly right. THIS is a chopper coupling - as you can see, it looks like a Scandinavian axe-head, which is why it is also called a Norwegian coupling - see the useful post above. It is widespread in European narrow gauge operation. The Brecon Mountain Railway, which BTW, is located in South Wales and runs from just outside Brecon in the direction of Merthyr Tydfil, uses their own rather odd coupling, which is called a drop-in bar and pin coupling. AFAIK, no other line in UK uses such a coupling.
None of these couplings are rigidly fixed in the coupling box - they articulate about three or four inches either side of the centre line [like a KaDee], but by comparison with a chopper coupling, The BMR coupling is pretty rigid. The BMR has NO sharp curves to cause difficulties, unlike the Ffestiniog and many other that do. This is because the original trackbed upon which the BMR was built was standard gauge, albeit a branch line, and the ruling radius was forty chains so that full-size 0-6-0 locos could negotiate the bends. Watch the movie and you’ll see what I mean. By contrast, on the Ffestiniog railway and also the Vale of Rheidol Railway [out of Tywyn abd Aberystwyth respecftully], there are places where you can almost shake hands with travellers in the next car in front or aback as they pass you by…
As for the Welsh people of North Wales speaking their own language in their own country, well there’s a fine how d’ye do for sure. I spent my formative years in Wales with my Welsh-speaking grandparents and all my grandad’s non-English-speaking relatives, so it’s not something that has ever bothered me. My first serious girlfriend was Welsh, and her use of the English language would literally stop stop in mid-sentence as we crossed the border from England into Wales. As you can imagine, we had some interesting times… In fact, the current mrs tac is half-Welsh, and very proud of it too, even though, sadly, she speaks not a single word of it, having been brought up as a Saesneg, poor gal.
tac
Ottawa Valley GRS