No 1 Elidir

Today's the day ...................... to catch the train

The village of Llanberis which lies at the foot of Snowdon is probably most famous as the starting point for the Snowdon Mountain Railway which takes passengers up to the summit of Wales' highest peak. 

But there is another railway in the village whose pedigree pre-dates the tourist boom - and goes back to the first quarter of the 19th century - to the early days of the industrial revolution and the start of the railway boom itself.  That's where we were today - on the Llanberis Lake Railway. 

Llanberis is in the heart of slate country.  By the 19th century, the extraction of the slate had developed rapidly and a means to transport it to other parts of Britain and rest of the world was desperately sought.  There was a natural harbour on the Menai Straits at Y Felinheli and a tramway was built in 1824 to connect the vast Dinorwic Slate quarry with it.  The tramway was superseded in 1842 by the Padarn Railway.

Nowadays, there is no large-scale quarrying of slate any more - and the Llanberis Lake Railway is all that remains of the original network.  But it provides an insight into what it must have been like in its heyday - and gave us a grand day out .......................