Locomotive Llanberis

Snowdon Mountain Railway

As you can see, a Bank Holiday afternoon is not a good time to travel! The SMR is the only rack and pinion railway in Britain, the gauge being 2' 7˝", and is the main reason why Snowdon is the most visited peak. If you walk up you won't encounter crowds until the very summit - there you'll find a café and lots of people in clothing not normally found on mountain tops!

For the time being, work carries on at the steam shed just as it always has, with the traditional jobs of coaling, watering and cleaning out the ash. Green No 6 Padarn snuggles up to 3 Wyddfa, the latter being the other one of the remaining original pair.

No 4 Snowdon enters the depot. Note the angle of the chimney and boiler - this is so the boiler is level when the engine is on the mountain. All the steam engines were built in Winterthur, Switzerland, a country with more experience of rack and pinion lines.

Looking up the track we spot the approach of a diesel, this being 9 Ninian, built by Hunslet in 1986. The third railcar is out of use today - presumably there's a fault otherwise it would surely be coupled to the others on this, one of the busiest days of the year.

Sister locomotive 10 Yeti, built in the same year, follows Ninian down the mountain.

The two diesels at the station, showing the contrasting styles of coach. No 10 was built in 1987 by East Lancashire Coachbuilders and can accommodate 53 passengers.