time for a Glyn Valley revival?

(30.5.1985)

I often show the bottom picture to friends and ask them to guess where it is. Switzterland, France, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary have all come up. It's actually the Ceiriog Valley in east Wales and it once contained possibly the best of the Welsh narrow gauge lines, the Glyn Valley Tramway. This was a mainly roadside 2'4" (and a bit) gauge line which connected the quarries at Glyn Ceiriog to the main line at Chirk. There's a small preservation group already in existence, but it's always seemed to lack ambition to my eyes - but they do have a blog! What they need to do is proclaim that they intend to restore the line for tourism and 'real' trains, bringing back the currently extinct (in the UK) steam tram in the process, giving their line a unique selling point. This would be a fascinating journey through some of the prettiest countryside in the UK. So I shall keep checking their website and when I see a spot of real ambition popping up I'll be the first in the queue to join up!

Swansea and Mumbles

A line that strangely has still not been restored is the Swansea and Mumbles, the first passenger line in the world. This would be an absolute gem of a line running along the promenade of Swansea Bay and drawing visitors to the Mumbles peninsular.

Criminally closed in 1960 - whilst still profitable, its huge articulated tramcars could take 100s of passengers off the roads at a time. It ran on a flat mainly roadside track and was of course electrified. There have been attempts to restore the line in the past, though this really is one that should never have closed, even without Peak Oil and Climate Change.