The spectacular Snowdon Mountain Railway
In our latest look at Britain’s steam railway gems, we explore a line that is utterly unique in these isles – the Snowdon Mountain Railway.
Your eyes cannot quite comprehend what they’re seeing; a sturdy, squared-off little steam locomotive – the sound of its urgent exhaust echoing off the surrounding hills – slowly but surely propels its solitary carriage up a seemingly impossible gradient. As the line follows its sinuous route up the mountain, both locomotive and carriage soon disappear as they ascend into the dense cloud layer above, heard but not seen as they continue their journey to the summit.
This is the Snowdon Mountain Railway. Enthusiasts seldom pay much attention to the SMR, primarily because it is not an enthusiast-oriented line; it doesn’t hold galas and it has only ever hosted a visiting locomotive once in its entire 125-year history. It is very much a commercial operation, geared entirely towards the circa 130,000 people who use it to ascend Wales’ highest peak every year.
But while it may not necessarily cater for enthusiasts, the SMR is one of the undisputed gems in Britain’s railway crown and should be on everyone’s railway to-do list.
Just the ticket
Unless you’ve taken the stiff walk to Snowdon’s summit, 3,560ft above sea level, most passengers’ journeys will start at Llanberis.
Llanberis has been the terminus of the SMR since 1896, when the pioneering line up the mountain first opened. Built to the unusual metric 800m gauge (or 2ft 7½in in old money), the line uses the Swiss Abt rack-and-pinion system to climb gradients as steep as 1-in-5.5 on its way to the summit, a feat impossible using mere adhesion working.
Pre-booking is essential as, given each train’s limited capacity, trains sell out very quickly. Pre-booking is especially important if you want steam, with diesel departures every 30 minutes from mid-March until the end of October and less frequent steam departures from May until September. There is also a premium to travel behind (or rather, in front of) steam, tickets being £42 per adult for a return trip versus £32 for diesel – making the SMR Britain’s most expensive railway per mile.
Expensive it may be, but the scenery alone is worth every penny.
For safety reasons, locomotives propel carriages up the hill and lead them on the way down. An upside of this unusual but vital arrangement is that, without the locomotive in front of you as on other railways, it affords unrestricted views of the mountains and the beautiful Snowdonia National Park as you climb to the summit.
If travelling on one of the SMR’s traditional steam services, you will be conveyed to the top in one of the line’s replica 1896 Snowdon Mountain Tramroad
& Hotels Co. Ltd observation carriages, complete with varnished wooden benches for that authentic Victorian travel experience. Large windows all round enable you to soak up the views and hear the locomotive working hard as it pushes you up the grade. If you can, sit at the front of the carriage for the best views, particularly with the track snaking away ahead of you.
Your steed will either be one of the SMR’s original 1896-built Swiss Locomotive & Manufacturing Co. 0-4-2RTs or the 1923-built superheated version, of which No. 6 Padarn is the sole operational example. Like steam locomotives on other mountain railways, the boilers are inclined to ensure the tubes and firebox are always covered with water to prevent boiler explosions.
The SMR is rare in still using the same
locomotives originally built for the line, although it has since supplemented its fleet with Hunslet-built diesels and, more recently, advanced Clayton Equipment Ltd hybrid diesel/ battery electric locomotives.
Taking the Up train
The first part of your 4.7-mile journey is at a relatively easy 1-in-50 – steep for main line railways but somewhat tame by SMR standards. Travelling at a sedate 5mph gives passengers plenty of time to enjoy the journey, which takes approximately 45 minutes to reach Clogwyn, the last station before the summit.
Leaving Llanberis, the train passes through pleasant woodland, crossing two viaducts over the
Afon Hwch river, into which plunges the Ceunant Mawr waterfall. This local beauty spot was once served by Waterfall Halt a little further on, which closed in September 1923, though the waterfall can still be reached by foot from the Llanberis path which climbs Snowdon from the village.
Emerging from the woods, passengers get their first glimpse of Snowdon, poking above the ridge to the right. The landscape is typical of the Snowdonian hills – bare and unforgiving, and dotted with long-abandoned stone dwellings which once housed local families and farmers.
The next station is Hebron, 1,069 feet above sea level. It is named after the nearby now-ruined Hebron chapel, built in 1833 to serve the religious needs of poor local families who raised the finance
to construct it. Hebron is also the site of the first passing loop on the line, so keep an eye out for any descending trains.
Climbing yet further, the line reaches the aptly named Halfway station (1,641 feet above sea level), where steam locomotives refill their tanks before the final assault on the summit. There is a short path from here down to the Llanberis path, which will take intrepid walkers to the nearby Halfway House café.
Leaving Halfway, the gradient increases considerably and the real work for both locomotive and crew begins. The train enters the boulderstrewn landscape of the appropriately named Rocky Valley, with the summit of Snowdon directly ahead. About halfway up the peak, you can see the line curving around the mountainside hundreds of feet above, carving its path to the top.
This is where you’ll cross the snowline during spring, creating a dramatic backdrop to your journey seldom experienced on other British heritage lines. Passing Rocky Valley Halt – which is little more than a concrete platform to the left of the track – the line tops a precipitous ridge, with the mountainside falling steeply away below on the left, affording views across the valley and the A4086 main road far below at the bottom. This section to Clogwyn must rank as one of the most visually spectacular pieces of railway line in Britain, and it is here that you can properly appreciate what a technical achievement the SMR was and still is.
Clogwyn (2,556 feet above sea level) is the penultimate stop before the summit and where services terminate during the early part of the season when ice and snow prevent trains reaching the summit. Given the exposed nature of the line from here to the summit, the wind speed is constantly monitored at Clogwyn, and trains will terminate here even during the high summer season if the wind is too strong. At this height, clouds can swirl around the landscape, giving the view ahead a somewhat ethereal quality.
From here, the line leaves the ridge and curves to the right, clinging to the mountainside with the slopes falling away on the right, allowing passengers to look back down the way they have come. It is on this final section that the line reaches its maximum 1-in-5.5 gradient; small wonder then that the diminutive rack tank engines need to refill their tanks before tackling this brutal final ascent.
On some days, your view out can be obscured completely as you ascend into the cloud layer – not something you experience at other steam railways.
At last, you reach the summit and the Hafod Eryri visitor centre, having climbed an incredible 3,140 feet from Llanberis at an average gradient of 1-in-7.9. Opened in 2009 and replacing the previous 1930s-built station and café, this is the UK’s highest visitor centre and receives over half a million visitors every year.
Here you can buy hot and cold drinks and snacks, but what you’re really here for are the views, which must rank among the best in Britain, if not the world. After a 30-minute stopover, your train makes its way back down the mountain to Llanberis and journey’s end.
While it may not have as much appeal for the die-hard enthusiast as somewhere like the nearby Ffestiniog Railway, the Snowdon Mountain Railway should not and cannot be overlooked. Not only does it remain a stunning technical achievement, it offers an experience no other heritage line can match in Britain and no visit to Snowdonia is complete without a trip on this extraordinary railway.