Great British Railway Journeys

by Charlie Bunce

  Colin explained that, although the use of chemical weapons such as mustard gas was officially banned by the Geneva Convention, they were made none the less, in case the Germans used them first and as a last-ditch line of defence should they invade our beaches. Tunnels, hundreds of metres long, were burrowed into the hillside to store thousands of tons of gas and chemical weapons.

  Initially the work was done by men but, as the war progressed, more women worked on the deadly job of filling the shells. The most hazardous part was adding the explosives and detonators to the shells, a job carried out in a section called the danger area.

  Flint Castle is one of a string built by Edward I to keep the welsh out of England.

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  Towards the end of the war, work started on an even more hush-hush project. It was here at Rhydmwyn that scientists first extracted Uranium 235, a key stage in the development of the atomic bomb.

  A far cry from this dark history is the mood of our next destination, the Queen of the Welsh resorts – Llandudno. Since the arrival of the railways, this stretch of coast, which also includes Prestatyn, Rhyl and Colwyn Bay, has been a popular tourist destination. Llandudno’s entry in Bradshaw’s guide reads: ‘This delightful place has become one of great import as a summer resort ... the air is particularly salubrious.’

  Walking around Llandudno, you can’t help but notice how well kept it remains. No faded paint and half-dead palms here. One reason could be that it has been controlled by one family for 500 years. Unlike many landowners, when the railway came the Mostyn family saw the prospect of it running through their land not as a curse but as an opportunity. The Mostyns designed a purpose-built Victorian season resort laid out on a curved grid that matched the sweep of the bay. It has flourished ever since.

  Attractions including its Tramway made Llandudno a cut above rival resorts.

  Francis Frith Collection/ Photolibrary

  One of the most enjoyable things to do here is ride the Great Orme Tramway, one of only three cable-hauled street tramways in the world, whose cars take you high up on to the headland and offer some of the best views in town. It wasn’t built until after his death, but Bradshaw would have loved it.

  On leaving Llandudno for Conwy, just to the south, the Victorian traveller was advised by Bradshaw to prepare for another wonder of modern engineering skill, Robert Stephenson’s tubular bridge, built to the specification of William Fairbairn (1789–1874).

  This radical new design was constructed by welding together a series of wrought-iron boxes to make a tube. It was prefabricated on the shore and then hydraulically lifted into place in just nine days in 1848. The innovative system allowed them to create a 400-foot bridge without any extra supports, and at the Conwy end the railway disappears through the town’s medieval walls.

  It was the first time an engineer and architect had worked side by side on the design of the railway. The intention not to spoil the historic town was largely successful, except for the decision to add medieval-style ramparts at each end of the modern structure in an attempt to blend it in with the castle – and the existing bridge – and proved rather clunky. At Conwy, as elsewhere, Stephenson was following in the footsteps of Thomas Telford, who had completed his suspension bridge there in 1826. Today there’s a third bridge, perhaps not as inspirational as its predecessors, to carry cars.

  For Stephenson, as for Telford, the building of the bridge at Conwy was effectively a trial run for the greater challenge of crossing the Menai Strait, more of which later.

  Opened in 1863, the Conwy Valley line to Blaenau Ffestiniog runs south through breathtaking scenery. Bradshaw describes it like this: ‘The vale through which the River Conway flows is remarkable for its beauty and fertility. Its luxuriant pastures, corn fields and groves are finely contrasted with the bleak appearance of the Snowdon mountain, which towers in frowning majesty above it.’

  There are 11 stations along the route, all adopted by local people. And it’s volunteers from the local communities rather than railway staff who look after them, rewarded simply with free train tickets. To catch a train, you simply flag it down. It’s a system that has seen the service flourish.

  WHEN THE RAILWAYS ARRIVED, THE ARTISTS THEMSELVES BECAME A TOURIST ATTRACTION, WITH PEOPLE COMING TO WATCH THEM AT WORK

  Just over half-way to Blaenau lies Betws-y-coed, which in the 19th century became the first artists’ colony in Britain. It was started by the leading landscape painter David Cox (1783–1859), who came here to paint and encouraged his friends to join him. When the railways arrived, the artists themselves became a tourist attraction, with people coming to watch them at work and visit the scenes like Swallow Falls, made famous by Cox’s paintings.

  Betws-y-coed was not originally on the line but was linked up with an extension completed in 1868. As a result the population, already boosted by resident artists, was further increased by tourists. Today the visitors are still coming in their droves, but the resident population has nearly returned to where it was when the railway opened.

  It is still a beautiful area, but for an abrupt interruption in the view. On the way towards Blaenau Ffestiniog the train passes through a tunnel built in 1879 and emerges among grey mountains of slag. This is because slate was mined rather than quarried. Bradshaw talks about 2,000 hands being employed in hacking and splitting. In its heyday there were six working slate mines in the vicinity, and the railways played a crucial part in their development, transporting slate to Portmadoc to be shipped around the world, particularly to Germany.

  Underground it was hot and dangerous work, lit only by candles or sometimes lamps. Men wielding heavy tools worked six days a week from the age of 12. They weren’t expected to live into their 60s.

  The First World War saw the mines closed. Although there was some resurgence in the industry between the wars, the mines closed again at the outbreak of the Second World War, during which they were used to store treasures from London museums.

  Today the industry is a pale shadow of its former self. It has been hit by a flood of cheap imported slate. The slate that is produced now is still prepared by hand and is mainly used in special restoration projects.

  In Bradshaw’s day the slate left there bound for the port on what is now the oldest serving independent railway in the world. The Ffestiniog Railway, founded in 1832, required a lot of innovation to cope with the loads the trains had to carry through such steep terrain. Finished in 1836, the narrow-gauge line was designed to deal with the sharp corners. In those days it was powered by gravity, with wagons coasting downhill to the sea at Portmadoc. Horses were then used to drag the empty wagons back up.

  An industrial route has turned into a heritage trail thanks to the Ffestiniog railway, one of the oldest in existence.

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  In 1863 steam locomotives finally replaced horses for the uphill leg of the operation. The railway company also pioneered a kind of double engine powerful enough to haul the heavy slate trains through the steep mountains.

  The last slate train left in 1946 but, eight years later, the line reopened as a heritage route carrying tourists between Blaenau Ffestiniog and Portmadoc. It is a spectacular railway with stunning views as it takes you down to the sea.

  Before heading back to the main line towards Holyhead, we followed Bradshaw’s recommendation and made a minor detour to Mount Snowdon, the highest mountain in England and Wales at 3,560 feet. To visit the mountain he suggests that you should hire ponies and guides. Today the best option to get you up there is a stout pair of legs. However, for the less sturdy, since 1894 there’s been a railway running from Llanberis almost to the top.

  A rack and pinion train copes admirably with the slopes of Mount Snowdon, ferrying less able outdoor types up and down.

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  The line is so steep that a normal friction railway would run back down the hill, so the trains use a Swiss system called rack and pinion. Between the tracks is a rack of teeth, with which a pinion or co
g wheel on the train meshes, thus preventing the train from sliding down the track. It is the only such railway in Britain.

  Travelling at a very sedate 6.5 miles per hour, the train gets to the summit in just 50 minutes. At the top you can see the remains of stables and two hotels, a reminder of what a very different experience the ascent would have been before the railways arrived.

  The Victorians were great explorers, especially when it came to nature. To help them, Bradshaw’s guide lists several types of rare flower to look out for on Snowdon. But as ecologist Dr Barbara Jones pointed out, they didn’t just seek and find. They arrived in their droves to pluck and preserve. Some species, like the mountain lily, became even rarer as a result, but thankfully it and many others are now protected by law.

  Back on the main line, we headed on towards Bangor and, beyond it, another of those incredible feats of Victorian engineering, Robert Stephenson’s famous Britannia Bridge across the Menai Strait. Both the bridge and the station by it on the other side are memorable, although for different reasons.

  The station is Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllanty-siliogogogoch, which has a whopping 58 letters (51 if you’re using the Welsh alphabet). The name only dates from the middle of the nineteenth century, and there’s a theory that it was created by villagers in a bid to embarrass the trippers who already inundated the area. The longest place name in Europe, it has in fact turned the station, which had little else to offer, into one of the most popular tourist attractions in Wales. The translation is something like this: ‘Saint Mary’s Church in the hollow of the white hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the Church of St Tysilio of the red cave’. Busy people tend to use the alternative name of Llanfair PG.

  BOTH THE BRIDGE AND THE STATION BY IT ON THE OTHER SIDE ARE MEMORABLE, ALTHOUGH FOR DIFFERENT REASONS

  The bridge had Bradshaw almost lost for words. ‘This magnificent structure was made to carry the Chester and Holyhead Railway across the Menai Strait. Like the beautiful bridge at Conway, it is on the tubular principle, but on a much grander scale, and is one of the most ingenious, daring and stupendous monuments of engineering skill which modern times have seen attempted ... we may justly express our admiration of it by calling it Mr Stephenson’s chef d’oeuvre, but this would scarcely do justice to the remarkable bridge or its great architect.’

  Sadly, much of the original Britannia Bridge, including its train tube, was destroyed in a fire in 1970. The replacement has a road bridge above the rail link. The great limestone lions that used to stand either side of the entrances to Stephenson’s old bridge are still on guard, but they have had to suffer the indignity of being set below the level of the road.

  The final stop on this journey is at Holyhead. On the mail route from London to Dublin this was the point of departure across the Irish Sea. ‘The once small town of Holyhead,’ wrote Bradshaw, ‘will speedily become an important place.’

  It did. When the railways arrived here in 1848 bringing the mail, they brought people too. Irish immigrants, British soldiers and politicians from all sides took advantage of the quick and easy ride to Dublin. Almost 200 years later, Holyhead may have lost some of that importance, but its port is still used by more than two million passengers each year.

  Europe’s longest station name is carried shoulder high to its resting place.

  Norman Potter/Rex Features

  JOURNEY 6

  THE TAMING OF THE HIGHLANDS

  From Ayr to Skye

  In the nineteenth century the Scottish west coast was a land of forestry and fishing, heather and haggis, wilderness and whisky. Life in what was frequently hostile terrain was continuing much as it had for centuries – until the arrival of the railway. The iron road was late in reaching its tentacles through the Highlands. Indeed, it was one of the most challenging stretches of line to confront railway builders of the age. Extreme gradients, curves, bogs and scree left engineers scrambling around for ideas. However, all the problems in the path of the ambitious project were finally resolved, and in October 1889 the first earth in the new 101-mile line was shifted with a silver spade. It took another five years and the labours of 5,000 men before the Glasgow to Fort William section of the line carried its first steam locomotive, pulling claret-coloured carriages. By April 1901 the leg to Mallaig – the first subsidised stretch in Britain – completed the route to the sea, and perhaps the most adverse environment in the UK had been tamed.

  Was it worth the effort? Today’s appreciative travellers seem to think so. In 2009 the West Highland line was voted the most scenic railway journey in the world by the Wanderlust travel magazine, above the Trans-Siberian Express and the Cuzco to Machu Picchu line in Peru.

  Although the West Highland line starts at Glasgow, we began our journey further south in Ayrshire, to take in more of the joys that west Scotland holds.

  The main function of the railways originally built here was to transport freight. As Bradshaw observed, it was a region rich in natural resources: ‘It has abundant mines of coal, freestone, limestone, iron, lead and copper, and from the great abundance of sea-weed which is cast ashore, vast quantities of kelp is made.’

  By 1840 passenger services were equally valued and there were already five trains each day, in both directions, between Glasgow and Ayr. At the time first-class passengers were paying 2d, while second- and third-class fares cost 1½d and 1d respectively. Initially third-class carriages had seats but, on 15 April 1840, the railway’s governing board declared that these should be removed. Later the same year it was decreed that third-class carriages should be hitched directly behind the engine, so the travelling poor would not only be standing but receiving a face full of steam and soot too. At the time 18 passengers travelled in each first-class carriage, situated furthest from the engine, with 30 in second class.

  With the dawn of the twentieth century came the first rail link to the Scottish Highlands, ready to share its glories with tourists for the first time.

  Getty Images

  The legacy of Robert Burns is a body of verse that brings the romance and rugged nature of Scotland alive.

  Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland/The Bridgeman Art Library

  At least some of those travelling to Ayr were going to pay homage to Robert Burns (1759–96), whose verse had captivated the nation. For the Victorians, famous poems and novels were an immense lure and there was an established Burns ‘trail’ that involved sites made famous in his works.

  BRADSHAW WAS SO BOWLED OVER BY BURNS THAT HE DEVOTED THREE COLUMNS OF HIS GUIDEBOOK TO THE GREAT MAN

  Bradshaw was so bowled over by Burns that he devoted three columns of his guidebook to the great man. ‘Ayrshire is called the “Land of Burns” who was born near the town of Ayr and every mile we come to is consecrated to that poet’s memory. Innumerable pilgrims from all lands visit these scenes, and the place of the poet’s residence, to gaze on what has been charmed and sanctified by his genius or merely to have the satisfaction of standing beneath the roof where Burns first saw the light.’

  Although he died aged 37, Burns crammed more into his short life than most people manage in their three score years and ten. He was born into a poor family and worked on the family farm as a boy. Unusually, he was also tutored and discovered a love of, and a dexterity with, language.

  His first collection of poetry, entitled Poems, chiefly in the Scottish dialect, was published in July 1786, with the aim of raising the cash for a passage to the West Indies where he was planning to emigrate. Its immediate success – with 612 copies selling within a month – persuaded him to stay in Scotland, and his body of poems and lyrics in both the Scottish and English tongues grew.

  Burns is not only remembered for his verse. He was an incurable womaniser and heavy drinker, who also earned enemies as he poured scorn on national institutions including the Kirk. His politics were, for the era, radical.

  His life is marked annually on Burns Night, commemorated on or near 25 January, the Scottish bard’s birth
day. The menu usually involves ‘neeps and tatties’ (turnips and potatoes) with haggis, traditionally served to the sound of Burns’s poem ‘Address to a Haggis’, beginning with the lines: ‘Fair Fa’ your honest, sonsie face, Great chieftain o’ the pudding-race!’

  Haggis was something of an everyday dish until Burns propelled it to the forefront of the Scottish consciousness. Although it is inextricably linked to Scottish tradition it is likely that the original dish came from France via the Normans or Scandinavia. For any culture it was a way of disguising cheap meat and animal innards.

  Crowds at Prestwick Golf Course during the open championship became so large and unwieldy that players could no longer see where their shot had landed.

  Getty Images

  Butcher Stuart Duguid, who owns one of the oldest butcher’s shops in Ayr, still makes hand-tied haggis to a recipe of sheep’s heart, liver and lungs minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices and stock. It is boiled in the sheep’s stomach for an hour before being served. It is perhaps an acquired taste, and Bradshaw was guarded in his response to it. ‘Though a heavy mess, some think it by no means disagreeable.’

  Like haggis, modern golf is widely accepted as a Scottish invention. Its rapid spread in popularity was undoubtedly helped by the arrival of the railway in this corner of Scotland.

  The golf club at Prestwick, just north of Ayr, which opened with 57 founder members in 1851, came hot on the heels of the rail link with Glasgow. One of a limited number of clubs in the country at the time, it hosted the first Open Championship in 1860. Eight competitors played 12 holes in the hope of winning a red morocco belt with silver clasps, worth £25. The victor was the great Willie Park of Musselburgh, who would go on to win the Open three more times.