Visit to the Great Orme Tramway

The original plan for this month’s branch trip had been to travel to Glasgow, and onwards with a Strathclyde Ranger ticket. However, recent disasters travelling north up the West Coast Main Line dissuaded all members from risking another debacle, so a relatively close and therefore “easy to get back home from” trip was organised to visit the Great Orme Tramway in Llandudno.

Six branch members attended the fixture, five meeting up at Chester, and the sixth going on ahead and joining us at Llandudno.

This time all trains ran to schedule and we all appreciated the North Wales coastline between Chester and Llandudno. In passing it was noted that Flint station, having been the object of much refurbishment work during the past few months, was finally completed and was looking very smart.

Despite the fact that the school holidays were over the Great Orme Tramway was extremely busy with a long queue lasting most of the day at the entrance point at Victoria Station.

It did not escape us that this tramway uses the same cable system as that in Lisbon, which had been in the recent news following the sad accident there, but in the event the ascent and descent both passed off smoothly.

Although the weather was cloudy and cool in Llandudno the views from the top of Great Orme across to Anglesey were excellent, and the fish and chips with mugs of tea at the base camp were much appreciated by several of us.

This was more of a members’ day out than a spotting trip and what was seen consisted largely of Class 197 units.