FR & WHR & WHHR News

Coverage of the Ffestiniog Bygones Event (Friday and Saturday) featuring all three Fairlies, Linda and Lyd, Hugh Napier, the Tasmanian Garratt K1 - the three special sets of carriages (Victorian, 1920s, 1960s), freight and gravity-slate trains, and some of the service trains too. A splendid event, as usual - great variety, excellent organisation, good sounds. Congratulations to all involved!

 

Thinking of taking a trip over half term, anyone know what locos are in use?

 

Saturday
Mountain Spirit - Palmerston and Blanche on Morning Trip, Merddin Emrys on Afternoon
Woodland Wanderer - Merddin Emrys on Morning Trip (Afternoon not running)
The Quarryman - Linda
The Harbourmaster - NGG16 No.130
Snowdonia Star - NGG16 No.87

Sunday
Mountain Spirit - Palmerston and Blanche on Morning Trip, Merddin Emrys on Afternoon
Woodland Wanderer - Merddin Emrys on Morning Trip, Blanche on Afternoon
Boston Lodge Shuttles - Lilla
Gelert Explorer - NGG16 No.87

Monday
Mountain Spirit - Merddin Emrys on both trips
Boston Lodge Shuttles - Palmerston

Tuesday
- Mountain Spirit - Merddin Emrys (only morning train runs)
- Woodland Wanderer - Blanche on both trips
- The Harbourmaster - NGG16 No.130
- Snowdonia Star - NGG16 No.87

Wednesday
- Mountain Spirit - Merddin Emrys (only morning train runs)
- Boston Lodge Shuttles - Palmerston
- Woodland Wanderer - Blanche on both trips
- LE Movement - Linda to Dinas
- Gelert Explorer - NGG16 No.87

Thursday (Last day of the season)
- Mountain Spirit - Merddin Emrys (only morning train runs)
- Woodland Wanderer - Blanche on both trips
- The Harbourmaster - NGG16 No.130 (swaps at Rhyd Ddu on return leg)
- Snowdonia Star - NGG16 No.87 (swaps at Rhyd Ddu on return leg)
- Footplate Rides at Caernarfon - Linda

Friday
- Linda on a ECS from Dinas to Boston Lodge

 

It’s odd that the last day of the season is Thursday. Half term many places is next week. This week was not half term for Midlands etc or indeed local schools. The trains were running a full program. I didn’t see the FR but the WHR trains often looked very lightly loaded and Beddgelert was really quiet all week. I was surprised the trains were operating, and now I am puzzled as they don’t run the full week next week when there might be more chance of traffic? I guess there is a good reason.

 

Fridays and Sundays are quiet at the best of times. Most people on half term will go home on the Friday. It's not really worth staying open for a few stragglers on the Saturday. October half term is not that busy in North Wales anyway.

 

Fair, just would expect half term week to be more busy than last week, when the trains were running.

 

Wow! Not sure what to make of this!

Caernarfon: Train smoke is making us sick, say residents

 

Notwithstanding the issue of poor quality coal: There are very few trains per day for only part of the year, and variable wind direction may blow smoke as much away from as towards the properties. Meanwhile the residents live happily every day with the mostly unseen but arguably more deadly effects of fumes and noise from vehicle pollution, plus diesel boats in the estuary. The properties are surounded by roads (big and small) and overlook a huge busy car park nearby. I stayed in a nearby apartment recently and there was no problem from the railway. Interestingly many of the many holiday lets in the area highlight the proximity to the WHR as an attraction. Not sure they will be pleased about this! Methinks the small number of residents concerned are perhaps being a tad over sensitive?

 

They may - but if the smoke is lingering around the house, I've some sympathy for those directly affected as being stood in pools of smoke is unpleasant.

 

Totally agree it is unpleasant, I just think a little tolerance wouldn't go amiss. Where I used to live neighbour at one side held barbeques and would also light this chiminea thing burning any old wood. Wind in a certain direction would bring in smoke, at which point my windows would be closed. I did ask him not to burn "green" wood or anything heavily painted and he complied, but I would not wish to spoil his enjoyment. The railway are trying to be good neighbours so hopefully peace will break out before next year.

 

I am sure that other people, adverse to smoke from a local steam railway, will take note of this. The interesting feature is that the coal "is not of the best type" and is the probable cause for the complaints.
I wonder if complaints of this nature will occur on other railways? Swanage seems to come to mind here when the wind blows towards houses in the adjacent road.

 

The coal that is currently available in the UK seems to be of a reasonable quality. However, if crews have been used to a soft coal with very little in the way of volatiles it requires a different technique to burn a hard bituminous coal. For a start you don't have to build up the fire until a couple of minutes before departure and, depending on the gradients and other parameters, might even be able to do it once on the move. (For example, this is possible on the NYMR leaving Pickering.) You can't really do that with a soft coal. Not putting coal to the front of the box when building up the fire is another technique to avoid smoke with a hard coal and the use of the firehole door and blower to control smoke becomes more important.

 

It seems you will always get those that are unhappy, sometimes rightly, often of their own making.
You mention Swanage, my dad lives in the block opposite the water column. Only built in 2013 so railway there long before. Yet some of those in the block purchase a flat there and then complain to the railway about smoke and diesel fumes. Some due diligence would be useful, wind is predominantly from the SW, so it will blow towards the flats more days then it will not.
If you think you may be impacted by a railway buy a property elsewhere in the town and the biggest complainer only uses it infrequently as a holiday home. Although I am getting perverse pleasure that it has now been up for sale for well over a year.
No idea how long the people in the article have been there, but the railway is "new" I suppose.

 

The person quoted appears to be a long time resident, and complaining about what has changed in her life since the change of coal.

It's not clear what discussions there have already been (if any), or how much the railway have acted as your neighbour did.

It seems like a classic slow news day story, but also a reminder that neighbourliness needs to work both ways.

 

I suspect the critical difference is that the smoke from the steam locos is much more visible than the fumes from the road vehicles, so they ignore its being probably less actually harmful, and certainly present for much less of the time.

 

I don't disagree with anything in here, but it is interesting in this discussion (and a somewhat related one on the Swanage thread) that firemen haven't got used to hard coal. It's not as if Welsh was universal right up to the point that it was no longer available - we've had somewhat variable coal supplies since well before Covid, and certainly since well before the Ukraine war. I'm sure in the last ten years or so we've had coal that has been variously described as coming from Wales, Scotland, Northumberland, Poland, Russia, Kazakhstan, Colombia and (I think) South Africa, not to mention at least two quite different formulations of ovoids. So learning to adapt to what you have is part of the game. Maybe the WHR / FfR has been very loyal over time to only buying Welsh coal, but our experience is that it has been part of a mix, rather than the dominant fuel, for at least ten years.

Tom

 

I'm a strong believer that the amount of smoke produced can be controlled by the fireman and I despair when I see photos of locos exhausting plumes of black smoke. However, I also know that, if you can make smoke with the regulator open then you've got the grate well covered and the loco will generally make steam so there's a natural tendency for firemen to aim for that as no smoke can be indicative of a poor fire when on the move. Smoke is, however, wasted energy.

 

A light transparent grey is what I like to see, and no more if at all possible.

I will say that the WHR trains do seem to have been much smokier of late. It has been drifting into my house too, and whilst I don’t mind….

 

Light grey is in accordance with the black book but it’s not the optimum situation as complete combustion would be no smoke. However, when you get to no smoke you don’t know where you are and could be running with 100% excess air and more. Smoke is the only indicator that the fireman has as to how his fire is doing, along with the pressure gauge, that is.

 

Agreed. My interpretation is this you aim for a very faint grey. You fire when the grey goes clear or shortly after because if you try to fire to a clear exhaust you don’t know if you actually have too little fire, until it stops steaming. (On a small engine that’s usually more recoverable than with a larger one - I’d be willing to have a go at firing zero smoke coming out of Welshpool, but not coming out of Alton).