Marking 100 years since the WHR reopened

WELSH Highland Railway revivalist groups are to jointly run a weekend of services between Dinas and Rhyd Ddu to celebrate the centenary of its reopening in 1922.

The Ffestiniog Railway Company, the Welsh Highland Heritage Railway, the Welsh Highland Railway Society and Welsh Highland Heritage Group have pooled resources to stage a series of celebratory events.

On July 30/31, heritage trains will operate between Dinas and Rhyd Ddu, as South Snowdon is now known.

While sections of what became the WHR were built in the 1820s, it was not until a century later that the unfinished and nearderelict North Wales Narrow Gauge Railway line between Dinas Junction and Porthmadog was completed. However, the railway immediately went into decline, with passenger services never restarting after the 1936 season. It finally closed in 1937.

June 23-25, 2023, will see a major event to mark the centenary of the opening to Porthmadog. It will involve all three heritage railways and some of the original locomotives.