Readers’ Platform

WHAT a pleasure to find July’s Practice & Performance devoted to the

Cambrian main line and the alternative route from Ruabon to Barmouth.

The contribution which these and other ‘lesser lines’ have made (and in some cases continue to make) to the rich tapestry of our railways is so often overlooked as more prestigious lines enjoy a near monopoly of attention.

I certainly have happy memories of the ‘nominally’ non-stop Summer Saturday ‘extras’ between Ruabon and Barmouth.

The trains did, of course, stop when required for water and crossing purposes, and I recall one enterprising young man walking alongside a train making an unadvertised stop at Bala Junction and selling ice creams from a tray carried on his shoulders.

It was perhaps inevitable that one or other of the routes through mid-Wales would succumb to the Beeching axe, but that makes it all the more difficult to excuse the folly of closing the 25mile section between Bangor and Afon Wen.

Without that line, the railway map of North Wales resembles three and threequarter sides of a rectangle, which does little to improve connectivity in the region.

A couple of minor quibbles with the Colour Rail captions. And are the dates of the pictures of the 43XX locos on pages 22 (1965) and 24 (1963) correct?

My recollection is that the class had disappeared from mid-Wales by the end of 1962, although it is just possible that a loco from one of the West Midlands sheds might have appeared on a Saturday ‘extra’.

David Mawdsley Bodfari, Denbigh

THANK you for the article about the Cambrian (July issue), but please note the correct name is Cambrian Railways. Andrew Symon

THE reference to a replacement bus service from Bala Jct to Llangollen in the Cambrian article cannot be correct, since there was no road access to Bala Jct station. Hugh Gould’s train from Barmouth and Dolgelley would have reversed from Bala Jct to Bala to make the bus connection there.

Tim Edmonds

THE following alterations to the Colour Rail captions have been gratefully received from David Jenkins: page

22, the train is about one mile below Talerddig summit, having passed through Commins Coch (the purported location) some five miles back down the line; top of page 24, far from departing from Talerddig, this train is about half a mile below Talerddig summit and its station; and page 27, the train is not working away from Dolgellau (Dolgelley), but about to arrive there.

THE Railways in Parliament section of July’s Railway Magazine includes a question from an MP about

“what steps DfT is taking to ensure all stations have a self-service ticket machine”. While this was a commitment for all stations in the Northern franchise that began in April 2016, sadly the provision has not been entirely successful. The arrival of a machine at my local unstaffed station, Humphrey Park, in the Manchester suburbs, saw it repeatedly vandalised (picture taken in December 2018). After several expensive repairs, the decision was taken to remove it.

The same happened at Trafford

Park, the next station along, and, I understand, at a number of other stations in the region after similar incidents of vandalism.

While saddened that this is how locals treated such a useful provision, it is also worrying that despite significant numbers of CCTV cameras at my station, they were of no use in enabling BTP to catch the culprits, possibly because at the time the machine was installed, none of them covered its location.

This in itself should have caused concern as, given it would be a place where passengers would be opening wallets and handling credit cards, CCTV monitoring may have provided them some sense of security.

Either way, it is clear that passengers unable to buy tickets and taking short journeys to other unstaffed stations are enjoying free travel, even if it would be their intention to pay, as there is not always time to find the conductor even when social distancing is not a requirement.

Tony Miles

Stretford