Narrow Gauge World

Welcome to NGW175, and for the second issue in succession I start with less than positive news centring on planning permissions… Though while it has to be said that the Lynton & Barnstaple Railway’s governance is in the spotlight over the Devon line’s planning issues, detailed last month, the Bala Lake Railway, which as we detail on the next page has seen its extension plans rejected, is without doubt an innocent victim of the worst kind of bureaucracy. The planning committee of the Snowdonia National Park Authority turned down the BLR’s application because “there could be no certainty that additional tourists drawn to Bala by the BLR would not contravene Welsh Government legislation regarding additional phosphates discharging into the River Dee.” Yes, translated, that means that if more visitors visit…

To Bala Lake Railway has vowed to fight on after the planning application for the line’s extension into the north Wales town of its name was thrown out by planning officials. On 19th April the Snowdonia National Park’s planning authority rejected the application to extend the 600mm gauge line by around 1200 metres from its present terminus at the former Bala Junction standard gauge line on the opposite side of the lake, to a new terminus in the centre of Bala. Planning officials accepted a recommendation of refusal by the Park authority’s planning officer, on the basis that there could be no certainty that additional tourists drawn to Bala by the BLR would not contravene Welsh Government legislation regarding additional phosphates discharging into the River Dee – effectively more tourists…

Just as the Isle of Man Steam Railway prepares for its 150th anniversary and the Manx Electric Railway its 130th, a potential threat to the heritage lines has emerged from the island’s Government. In October it was first announced that the future of the IoMSR was “under consideration” as part of a review of the island’s Department of Infrastructure. In April the Manx Government revealed that it was commissioning an independent review and economic assessment of the heritage railways it operates – the IoMSR, MER, Snaefell Mountain Railway and Douglas Bay Horse Tramway. The review will be designed to update a similar exercise carried out in 2017/18 by engineering consultants SYSTRA. That document concluded that the railways cost £4.87m to operate, while producing a direct revenue of £1.66m. However the…

Hopes that the heritage steam sector might still be able to access Welsh steam coal appeared dashed on 26th April when an application to continue extraction at the UK’s last mine was rejected. Merthyr Tydfil Council’s planning committee threw out Fros-Y-Fran open-cast mine’s bid to continue extracting the lump coal until March 2024 – the mine had been due to close in September 2022. The decision followed a direction by the Welsh Government that without its approval councils could not grant permission for coal extraction – indeed Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford welcomed the rejection. Environmental campaigners also celebrated the refusal, despite the heritage rail sector, a major contributor to the UK’s tourism income, producing less than 0.02 per cent of the UK emissions total each year while the alternative,…

A locomotive that was a stalwart of the A Welshpool & Llanfair Light Railway (W&LLR) in its earliest preservation years will return to the railway this month for a Gala celebrating two significant events, one exactly twice as old as the other. Sentinel geared locomotive ‘Nutty’, (7701/1929) built in Shrewsbury just 20 miles away from the W&LLR, will be on display at the ‘60/120’ Gala marking six decades since the mid-Wales 2ft 6in gauge reopened as a heritage railway run by volunteers, and the day 60 years and two days earlier when on 4th April 1903 the line opened for the first time. Nutty arrived on the line in 1964, on loan from its owner the Narrow Gauge Railway Museum, and while mainly used on works trains also worked passenger…

A carriage that once conveyed Prince Phillip the Duke of Edinburgh has left the Corris Railway for a new home with a museum in Manchester. The vehicle was used in the early years of the Centre for Alternative Technology, based just two miles from the Corris line and which when first established in the 1970s had a small industrial tramway. The Duke of Edinburgh, who also held the Welsh title of Earl of Merioneth, rode in the carriage on a visit to the centre in 1974, though reputedly he chose to walk rather than take the return journey in it… When the carriage became surplus to requirements at CAT, it was presented to the Corris but as the 2ft 3in gauge line has progressed in the construction of its own…