2011-08-24 Llanberis Lake Railway

On our 2011 holiday in the UK I also visited the Llanberis Lake Railway. For one because I had not been there before but second to try and locate a special named locomotive and get photgraphed in front of it: Thomas Bach, which happens to be the name of the son of a very good friend of mine.

1 The Llanberis Lake Railway is a narrow gauge heritage railway that runs for 4 km along the shore of Llyn Padarn in north Wales in the Snowdonia National Park.	2 The starting point is the town of Llanberis at the eastern end of the lake, quite near the starting point of the Mount Snowdon Railway. The return journey takes around 45 minutes.	3 Almost the first thing I saw when I got to the station was this train arriving at the Slate Museum	4 Dolbadarn is a 1922 built Hunslet
5 While waiting for my own train I walked into the National Slate Museum	6	7 The remains of a former slate mine	8 Turntables, well sort of...
9	10 The lake that remains after the mine was closed	11	12 The museum gave a good impression of the harsh life at the slate mines
13 Simple, sturdy and effective	14	15 The main product of slate: roof tiles. The slate industry collapsed when the demand for slate plummeted with the advent of other building methods.	16
17 The once prolific site of the mine	18 Environmentally the slate industry was all but good news to the surrounding countryside	19	20 Double flanged!
21	22 Living conditions were generally very poor. For the workers that is. The overseers could relish in some form of luxury.	23	24
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33	34 A photo I took later that day shows some of the environmental impact of the slate mines	35 When I returned to the railway I was happy to find that the locomotive that would be pulling "my" train was the very much wanted Thomas Bach	36 What? Doesn't the name plate say "Wild Aster"? Yes, I can still read. Watch this ==>
37 ==>	38 ==>	39	40
41 Aha!!	42	43 Move that train!!	44 At Llanberis station...
45 Wel here it is. The photo I wanted to make	46	47 Setting off along the lake	48
49	50	51	52 The weather was so clear that I could see the steam trains reaching the summit of Mount Snowdon
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