Llanberis Lake Railway

Aside from the Snowdon Railway, this is the other steam railway in and around Llanberis. Like most passengers, I began my journey at Gilfach Ddu Station, in Padarn Country Park. The station is an attractive rock building with wooden doors, red trimmings, and hanging baskets. The car park serves the railway, the slate museum and several other attractions in Padarn Country Park. Before you make your way to the station, take a moment to reflect that if you’d been here 200 years ago you would be in the middle of the lake, as the whole of the car park and the area known as Gilfach Ddu is reclaimed land because of the quarry tipping slate waste into the only available space – the lake!

Train tickets, gifts, books, and refreshments are available for purchase in the Station Building. Boarding the train, I noticed that the coaches have doors on one side only. This is because all the stations are on one side of the line. Passengers operate the carriage windows using leather straps with holes to hold the window in place when open. The train departs from the platform and, after crossing the access road to the station, starts the run alongside the Slate Museum. This building was once the main workshop for the whole quarry and was totally self-sufficient. Other steam engines were outside the building, as part of the museum is used as an engine shed and railway workshop. 

We were soon off again in the opposite direction – with the locomotive pushing the carriages – as the train retraced its path to Padarn Park, but this time went non-stop through the station. Views across Llyn Padarn (Padarn Lake) now began. The train follows the shore of the lake, close to the water’s edge. Llanberis and the Snowdon Mountain range are visible across the lake. I spent some time trying to work out which of the peaks was Snowdon and wondering where the train line to the peak was, as I couldn’t see it. 

My new book is available here.

The book covers not only the Great Little Trains of Wales but also other methods of transport in the UK.

I was eight years old when my interest in steam trains began. My parents and I lived close to someone who worked at Doncaster train station. The Flying Scotsman was the most famous train of the time, and for some reason it was at Doncaster for a few days. I was asked whether I’d like to see the train and go on the footplate. Of course I did. What I remember most was the enormous size of the train and that the driver’s cab seemed as big as my bedroom. Everything about the train, the colours, the gleaming metal, the gorgeous carriages, the mountain of coal, made a lasting impression – I wanted to go to places, and I wanted to go on a train like this one.

My father wanted to travel, and the plan was for my parents to see the world when he retired. Cancer cut short his life and their plan died with him. Once I had the finances, I felt duty bound to travel to the places he wanted to go, and if possible, go by steam train. This book is what I found.