Cwm Prysor - 'The Bala Branch'

[DLT]

Thanks very much.

[geoff west]

9669 ready to take up duties. Expertly weathered by Tom Foster. 

[CazRail]

I think that's everyone's dream layout shed! Very nice, glad this layout lives on.

[Tom F]

Yesterday I headed down to Oxfordshire to continue work on my client's Cwm Prysor.

 

I've now made the mountain section of Craig Aderwyn, which even in it's bare mod rock setting, it has a feel of the bleak mountain landscape. I've attached a photo, looking in the opposite direction of the real place, taken a few years ago.

Hope to do another visit at the end of year, where we will work on adding the rock features.

 

 

 

 

 

[Wheatley]

Spectacular. I was thinking your mountainside maybe looked a bit step, then I scrolled down a bit ! That's a proper shelf ! 

[Tom F]

8 hours ago, Wheatley said:

Spectacular. I was thinking your mountainside maybe looked a bit step, then I scrolled down a bit ! That's a proper shelf ! 

Thanks Wheatley 🙂

I think it was know as the ‘shelf’

[Ben B]

4 minutes ago, Tom F said:

Thanks Wheatley 🙂

I think it was know as the ‘shelf’

 

I drive that road regularly, and look up at the remains of the railway. I always think it was an insane amount of effort for what in the end constituted a few pannier tank/14xx's and a couple of coaches a day...

[Captain Kernow]

14 hours ago, Ben B said:

I always think it was an insane amount of effort for what in the end constituted a few pannier tank/14xx's and a couple of coaches a day...

Indeed, but.... different times, different ways...

 

I always think that the greater effort to build such a railway, the greater is the 'crime' of closing it.

 

[Ben B]

5 hours ago, Captain Kernow said:

Indeed, but.... different times, different ways...

 

I always think that the greater effort to build such a railway, the greater is the 'crime' of closing it.

 

 

I'm sure I've read that there were serious proposals to retain it, to serve the atomic power station, even to the point of costing a diversion for the resovoir scheme, if the Conwy Valley line was to shut. That would seem to imply the slightly insane retention of Ruabon-Llangollen-Corwen-Bala-Traws just for the flask trains, unless the plan was to work flasks up the Cambrian and retain Dollgellau to Bala. Of course that could have just been so the engineers could justify the lower costs keeping of the Conwy route and a bit of new infrastructure in B.Ffestiniog.

 

Who knows- maybe in some alternate history, the Conwy route is shut, and a few 158's a day still negotiate the tortuous curves into the old GWR station, after arriving from Ruabon and Llangollen :)

[Wheatley]

Real life photo is interesting, you've got the reasonably distinct but irregular cut line where the natural slope is interrupted by the railway cutting, then a smoother scree slope below where the spoil from the cutting/shelf has just been tipped and allowed to find its own angle of repose (he said, trying to remember the geology bits of his degree ....). 

 

The modroc captures that i think. 

[JZ]

1 hour ago, Ben B said:

 

I'm sure I've read that there were serious proposals to retain it, to serve the atomic power station, even to the point of costing a diversion for the resovoir scheme, if the Conwy Valley line was to shut.

Wasn't BR offered compensation in order to divert the line? Or was that just a figment of me imagination.

[The Johnster]

Taking the Treweryn/Trawsfynydd/Tanygrisiau schemes as a whole, there were a lot of local conspiracy theories at the time.  Some of them turned out not to be theories...

Edited 17 hours ago by The Johnster

[Captain Kernow]

2 hours ago, JZ said:

Wasn't BR offered compensation in order to divert the line? Or was that just a figment of me imagination.

No, you are right, Liverpool Corporation did offer compensation but BR decided to close it anyway.

 

[JZ]

56 minutes ago, Captain Kernow said:

No, you are right, Liverpool Corporation did offer compensation but BR decided to close it anyway.

 

Surprised they didn't take the compo anyway.

 

[Tom F]

1 hour ago, Captain Kernow said:

No, you are right, Liverpool Corporation did offer compensation but BR decided to close it anyway.

 

Indeed, realising it was much cheaper to just knock through from the GWR to the LNWR station.