Earlier this week, through no fault of my own, I found myself in Chester with a couple of hours to spare. It was early on a scorching hot Bank Holiday, and the city centre was still lazily waking up: people were comfortably sleeping off barbecues and the shops were opening... whenever. I wandered over the Dee to Handbridge, and sat for a little while watching the weir and listening to a podcast. Then I remembered a little bit of transport infrastructure I'd never seen, and decided to go and take a look.
I have long campaigned for more footbridges by railways. Actually, I say campaigned: what I actually mean is I have long bitched about the lack of footbridges by railways. It mainly stemmed from when I visited Tonfanau station, during a lovely trip along the Cambrian Coast. Tonfanau is on the north side of the Dysynni estuary, and Tywyn is on the south side. The railway takes the shortest route between the two points, over the river, while the road goes round the long way. Not wanting a five hour detour, I clambered up onto the railway and basically trespassed. I'm not proud of it.
My point is: there should have been a footbridge. (There is one now, built a little further inland, and I am disappointed they didn't name it after me). If there's a railway forming the shortest crossing between two points, I think there should be a footbridge strung along the side of it. It's a quick, easy fix, and a handy way to link communities. There's nothing more annoying than seeing a Sprinter merrily skim across a river while you clamber on board a bus for a huge diversion.
There's only one crossing of the River Dee between the Grosvenor Bridge in Chester city centre and the A494 in Queensferry: the railway bridge taking the line to North Wales. And, for once, there's a footbridge for pedestrians, connecting the racecourse to the upscale district of Curzon Park. I suspect it's no coincidence that a footbridge was deemed necessary for those two parts of the city rather than, say, connecting Saltney with the industrial park at Sealand.
After a long hot walk through Chester's most suburban suburbia I turned up a side road to the golf course. The footbridge is reached via some steps from the road surface (so bad luck cyclists and people in wheelchairs), taking me down into cool undergrowth. The footpath was slippery, despite the baking sun, and angled downwards just to add to the general feeling of mild peril.
It was only as I reached the crossing itself - literally as it hoved into view - that I remembered: bridges tend to be high. And I don't like heights. Hate them. My heart immediately began to pound as I realised I'd walked two miles to reach a footbridge I really didn't want to walk over.
There is a facet of my personality that will always outvote something as small as crippling vertigo, and that is my bloody mindedness. If I had come all this way to walk across a bridge, then I was going to bloody well walk across a bridge, and not even the prospect of dying of a heart attack midway could stop that. I put my glasses in my pocket - because I'm always scared they'll slip off and fall in the water - and ventured across, one hand skimming the handrail just in case a train came across and tried to shake me into the river. To my left, I could see the railway tracks; to my right, an admittedly beautiful view.
After, oh I don't know, about four and a half weeks of walking, I finally reached the stairs on the opposite bank.
I headed down them to the blessed safety of dry land. On the north bank, there's far more places to go; a riverside stroll, or a walk between the railway viaducts and the greenery of the Roodee. It was all very pleasant, and helped to moderate my pounding heartbeat. There should be more footbridges attached to railway bridges, because they're a simple but effective way to make cities more pedestrian and cycle friendly; just don't expect me to enjoy using them.
Hell is other people, said Sartre, presumably while waiting in the queue at Argos. It's a maxim that's particularly true of rail travel. All those people, crammed together in a tiny tin tube, breathing in each other's air, smelling their perfumes, listening to their conversations. Just one bad travelling companion can completely destroy your journey and send you scurrying to the taxi rank.
At Tywyn, there are two tracks, a rarity on the Cambrian Lines, so trains wait there to allow each other to pass. It meant that for five minutes, waiting for the train to get going, I had to sit across from one of the most negative, miserable, and generally unpleasant women I have ever had the misfortune to be in close proximity to. She had a bowl of tight blonde hair which looks like it was screwed onto her skull at puberty and hasn't been touched since. Across from her was her husband, a man with a moustache and the defeated look of a man who's inadvertently chained himself to a Rottweiler for the rest of his life.
She first entered my consciousness as she loudly demanded he repay her for the coffees they'd had that morning. "How much money have you got on you?"
"I don't know," said her husband. He pulled out his wallet, one of those ones with a section for coins that are used exclusively by the emasculated, and she snatched it off him. She rifled through it, pulling out a fiver and dumping a load of coppers from her own purse into it. "Are you giving me all that change?" he said.
"Yes," she said. "I'm sick of carrying it around. I'm taking this five pound note. You can pay for the drinks tonight. And the Radio Times, when that's due." A look round the carriage, her face contorted into a sneer, and then she complained that the train was on time. How dare it be efficient!
As we take off, the guard appears, a chirpy girl they recognise and call Nellie. "It's a bit quieter than the last time you were on here!" said the guard.
"Yes, thank God. It's not that the children were shouting. There were just far too many of them."
The train carries on, as does Helmet-Head's monologue to the guard about children, noisy trains, the inconvenience of train travel, the inconvenience of her friends for living away from Tywyn, the inconvenience of having to pack a bag when you stay overnight. A pause at an open gate leaves her fuming at the farmer at the side of the line. "Dickhead!" she shouts, as though he can hear her. "Now he's held up the train."
"They have to be careful," says Nellie. "You don't want to accidentally hit some one. That can traumatise a driver."
"I know," says Helmet-Head. "You hear about these suicides throwing themselves on the track. It's so selfish. I mean, I've been depressed, but I got over it. You just need to pull your socks up."
Fortunately we stopped at Aberdovey before I had time to finish crafting a rudimentary garotte out of the straps of my backpack. I stepped onto the platform lightly and with genuine pleasure at the idea that I wouldn't have to sit across from that woman all the way to Newtown.
Perhaps the escape made me especially generous to Aberdovey station. I don't think so. It was in a charming spot, close to the sea, with a bowling green behind it. The station building had been turned into a private residence, but it wasn't fenced off from the platform, and it still gave the halt a sense of importance.
It also had, as you can see above, a Harrington Hump. These are ramps built onto a station to avoid the expense of raising an entire platform to modern train heights: typically they occupy the centre and mean that it's easier for less able passengers to board. I just love that they're called Harrington Humps; it's from the same world as Belisha Beacons and zebra crossings, eccentric names for something boringly practical.
The sun had decided that yes, it would grace us with its presence, after a day of being ambivalent about whether it was needed or not. It meant that there was something approaching a pleasing warmth as I walked down to the main road for the sign shot.
Aberdovey has two stations, which is quite ridiculous for a town of its size, but handy for me. They were either end of the main street, so I followed it into the centre. Above me on the clifftops were white villas with sea views; they looked almost exactly like somewhere a vindictive colonel would be murdered by his despairing family in a lesser Agatha Christie.
In fact, Aberdovey had a general Christie-ness about it, a gentility and elegance that you didn't expect from a seaside resort these days. Perhaps it's because it's still a working harbour, rather than just a tourist trap, but there was a sense of authenticity to it you don't often get. The promenade curves round the bay, lined with eighteenth-century houses painted bright colours, while behind it are tiny Georgian streets that intersect at wild angles.
I was disappointed to spot a Fat Face in the town square, though. That shop instantly marks the town as a place where it is acceptable for men to wear both three-quarter length trousers and Breton shirts; the hipsters had discovered it. Fortunately they all seemed to be out of town during my visit - presumably they were all in England.
I did a couple of circuits of the centre before going into the Dovey Inn. It had caught my eye with its carved board near the roof:
This house was built by Athelstain Owens Esqr.
Ano Dom 1729
I was disappointed to find that inside it had been modernised within an inch of its life. Not in an especially ugly way; in fact it was inoffensively tasteless, all blonde wood and frosted glass. As I sat down in a corner with my pint of Milkwood, though, I wished it still felt like a three hundred year old inn, rather than a Wetherspoons with a nice frontage.
I watched the light bouncing off the sea for a while, glinting among the wavelets, and slowly knocked back my pint. I could live here, I thought. I could live in one of those houses, overlooking the bay, watching the fishermen leaving in the evening for their catch. Drinking a beer on the balcony while I listened to the sea below me. Then wandering down into town to find a nice quiet restaurant for the evening. The slow life.
Of course, it would drive me mad in reality, the moment I realised I'd have to go fifty miles to get that brand of toothpaste I like, or when all my friends suddenly started trying to use my house as a free hotel. It was nice to dream for a while.
I carried on through the town, feeling vaguely as though I was in a pirate cove, striding among the close fit houses and the sea walls. The presence of a Literary Institute, with signs advertising both a "News Room (Visitors Welcome)", and a billiard room, did nothing to convince me I was in the 21st century.
Soon I'd reached the other end of the town, close to Penhelig station, and I realised it was a lot smaller than I'd planned for so I still had a while before my train. I picked another pub close by, the Penhelig Arms, to kill time in. It was built into the rock face behind the town, with no pavement outside and the railway bridge overhanging it, and I was pleased to find it was a much more old-fashioned pub than the Dovey Inn. There seemed to be a "posh bit" upstairs, with a terrace, but I'd wandered into the slightly more threadbare lower bar, the place the locals frequented.
The bar was so authentic, they'd not even bothered with levelling the floor for the tables, and I managed to spill a centimetre of beer right instantly. I mopped it up with my handkerchief while I listened to the barmaid tolerating a regular talking about his day. He'd been up until 4am watching a documentary about Burt Bacharach; "do you know he made Cilla Black do 19 takes of Anyone Who Had A Heart?" I was going to suggest that Burt should have made her do a few more, but instead I stuffed my beer-soaked hankie into my pocket and relaxed.
A heavy clock over the fireplace noisily ticked away, knocking down the minutes until my train. The barmaid perched on a sttol, turning the pages of her Western Mail, enjoying a moment's silence while John regathered his thoughts. Suddenly he exclaimed: "I don't care what anyone says; I like sprouts." She took the non sequitur in her stride, and joined him in a chat about which green vegetables are best (the winner: broccoli). I heard the Pwllheli train rattle past, and realised it was sadly time to go, before I could stir things up by chucking kale into the equation.
Penhelig station was just across the street, with a metre of pavement giving me space to stand and take the sign picture. Above it was a narrow staircase taking you up the embankment to the platform. No wonder they put in a Harrington Hump at Aberdovey - this is very wheelchair-unfriendly.
The station is built in the brief gap between two tunnels in the rock. The train has just enough time to emerge from the darkness and stop before it's back inside for another underground trip. The Welsh version of the Colour Tsars had struck again, painting the little wooden shelter red, green and white.
It was probably the two pints of beer, but I found the little hut charming, even more so when I found that the local graffiti artists were clearly as OCD as me. There was a window in one wall of the hut, but not the other, so someone who deeply values symmetry had drawn one in:
It could have done with a ruler and set square to get the angles right, but well done you.
My train turned up and, even better, stopped for me (I was worried that the driver wouldn't see me in the time it took for him to come out of the tunnel). My next stop was the famous - almost legendary - Dovey Junction. Even the guard seemed to recognise its special place on the line: "Ladies and gentlemen. This... is DOVEY JUNCTION," pausing for it to sink in as though it were a headliner at the Las Vegas Hilton.
As I've said before, the Cambrian Line is in two parts: the Main Line heads south to Aberystwyth, while the Coast Line heads north to Pwllheli. The point where the line splits is at Dovey Junction and, for reasons best known to themselves, the line's architects constructed a station here. Now it's one of the least used stations in Britain, and as such, on Robert's list for his Station Master blog (but I've beaten him to it, ha ha).
I was the only person to get off. Most people who want to change trains will stay on until Machynlleth, further up the line, which at least has a station building and somewhere pleasant to sit and get a Coke. I dropped my bag off in the shelter (who was going to steal it, a vindictive otter?) and walked down the ridiculously long Aberystwyth platform. There's been talk about restoring London services to this line, and this is reflected in a platform built for Voyagers. A refurbishment in 2011 also raised it above the flood plains and gave it new tarmac - it has the unfortunate effect of removing any old-world charm the station might have had.
It was a mile and a half from the station to the nearest road; a map advising you of where to catch a rail replacement bus was more or less just an arrow saying "walk this way". The road passes through high reed beds - it's a protected wildlife area - until you reach the "Station House", and with it, the main road.
In a further blow to Dovey Junction's image as an isolated spot, the main road was undergoing a major upgrade. There were diggers, trucks and steamrollers loudly hammering at the rock face, while workers crawled all over the site. The noisy jackhammers echoed throughout the valley.
Up the nose shot taken, I turned round and went back the way I came, pausing only to pee. I now had an hour to kill until the train back to Barmouth. The services aren't even aligned to help with the interchange; two eastbound services pass within ten minutes of each other, then it's almost two hours before the next westbound train.
To pass the time, I decided to make a little video.
Even during the course of that video, my attitude to the station was changing. I'd been let down at first. It was, after all, the famous Dovey Junction, and yet it wasn't that isolated and it wasn't that pretty. Look beyond the drab Arriva Trains Wales corporate colours and the easily maintained pebbles and you realise how lucky you are to be here; in the centre of a wide expanse of natural beauty, with no-one but yourself and your thoughts for company. Out there - beyond the platforms - out there was the world to explore; Dovey Junction was just a means to get there. Its magic is its surroundings, not the station itself.
I got back on the train and settled into my seat, taking just a moment to perv at the hot conductor (hello Alex!). It was finally time to return to Barmouth, to a shower and a drink and a sleep. Day one: done and dusted.
"Tonfanau," I said, pronouncing it all in one go - tonf'nau.
"Ton-FAN-au," she said. Suddenly I realised why everyone else finds it annoying when I correct their grammar.
For years the station was there to serve an army base. That's long gone, and you can see the roofless hulks of the former base structures from the platform. It's a lonely, desolate spot and, shorn of its purpose, British Rail applied for permission to close it in the nineties. That was refused, however, and so the halt struggles on into the 21st Century - a request stop that probably doesn't get many requests.
I headed south, stepping off the main road and onto a side path. Surprisingly, I wasn't alone. A couple had parked their car on the verge so they could walk their dog. I wondered what they thought, suddenly being stalked in the middle of nowhere. I tried to put on my most unassuming and sane-looking face. I probably ended up looking like Ted Bundy. They quickened their step as we all reached the coast more or less simultaneously.
I want to make something absolutely clear: I do not advocate trespass in any way shape or form. There's a reason why railways have fences round them. We got several stern lectures from British Transport Policemen when I was at school, telling us about the dangers of walking on railway lines. We were shown videos featuring little Timmy (it was always Timmy in public information films) getting fried to death by a rogue overhead wire, or getting his foot torn off by a passing InterCity. It was all very scary and convincing and frightening.
After Tonfanau, however, I was torn. The next station was Tywyn, directly to the south. By train, it was a couple of minutes. Walking, however, meant a six mile hike, because the River Dyssyni is in the way. It forms a large open lagoon and the roads pass round the edge. The railway, on the other hand, passes over the narrow neck of the river, cutting all that out.
I made a decision: I was going to walk across that bridge.
I'd only trespassed on a railway line once before, in Spain. The BF and I misunderstood the instructions on how to reach Sitges' primary gay beach, and ended up walking a mile along the main line to Barcelona with express trains bombing past every ten minutes. It was an unnerving experience. This bridge, on the other hand, only saw action twice every two hours - one train in one direction, one in the other - and I'd seen them both pass. I had plenty of time.
I scrambled over the tiny wall, up the embankment, and onto the sturdy bridge. Simple.
On the north bank, there had been a low, decrepit-looking fence, rusting gently in the sea air. As I reached the south bank, I saw that things were radically different. Here there were tall, eight foot high spikes, made out of strong aluminium and concreted in. They were utterly impossible to get past.
I immediately panicked. I had thought it would be ridiculously easy to get out, and now I was trapped next to the railway line. The spikes extended off into the distance as far as I could see. I made a half-hearted attempt to climb them, but I'm not physically gifted, and I just can't climb. The spikes were too close for me to even get my foot it. Plus, those sharp, three-pronged tops looked lethal.
I carried on, looking for some way out. A patch of brambles might have provided a ladder, but it was too thick for me to get up to the fence. I crunched over the stones by the side of the railway, praying I wouldn't have to walk all the way into Tywyn. Here it was quiet and deserted enough that no-one could see me. I didn't fancy standing on top of an embankment in the centre of town, parading my trespasses for everyone to see.
Nice view though.
Finally I came across a pile of concrete sleepers, stacked next to the fence. Salvation! I clambered up the pile and stood at the top. All I had to do was take a leap and I'd be over the fence and safe.
Except... I couldn't do it. It was a big drop. There was a hard road on the other side, not soft, forgiving grass. I had visions of taking the leap, snagging a testicle on the spikes, falling to the floor in agony and cracking my skull open on the ground. I just couldn't do it.
Disappointed with my cowardice, I climbed back down to trackside. I resigned myself to being stranded on the railway side forever. I'd live a linear life, wandering up and down the nation's network, eating the plants that grew by the side and drinking the exhaust water from the diesel engines. I'd become something for families to point at as their train went speeding by.
Then the fence altered, and I found hope again. Instead of spikes, it changed to a mesh; ok, it was still incredibly tall, but it had a bit more give to it. I quickened my pace, testing sections to see if they'd move enough to let me through, and then I found it: a low hollowed-out passage under the fence, no doubt formed by some over-ambitious animal who ended up squished under the wheels of the 18:50 to Pwllheli. I pushed my rucksack under (hoping I'd be able to follow it, because if I couldn't fit, I'd be fucked) and then I slid after it. The soil was soft and sandy, and my coat rode halfway up my back, exposing a good couple of inches of buttock on the way. I flattened my head against the earth, ignored the pointy bits of metal centimetres from my easily-pierced eyeballs, and dragged myself through. Freedom!
I shook myself down and tried to make myself look dignified again, then casually strolled away towards the town. Out here everything was still countryside, but it looked like Tywyn was starting to reach out and colonise it. Just beyond a small waterworks was a board advertising a coming residential development - Low cost homes for local people. They started at £118,000, which wasn't my idea of a low cost home, particularly one downwind from a sewage farm.
The start of the town proper was marked by more abandoned ordnance; in this case, an RAF base now standing empty. Low prefab sheds sat in rows, vacant and looking for some purpose. An optimistic sign advertised "storage potential", but I bet if I come back in five years it will have all been knocked down and replaced by holiday homes and caravans.
Tywyn is a boring town. It could have been anywhere in the United Kingdom, with red brick rows and corner shops. A row of railway cottages had been attacked by PVC windows; there was white double glazing in every possible spot. Every house had boxed in its entry with a plastic porch, a sort of charm removing room. Only the occasional field of sheep and, off in the distance, the blue mountains under endless sky made you realise you were somewhere special.
I wanted a cup of coffee and a sit down. I had a while before my train so I headed for the Talyllyn Railway. It's within shunting distance of the mainline station, and as a major tourist attraction, I assumed it would have a decent tea shop. I got a drink from a young lad in the cafe who quite clearly only worked there so he could be close to the trains and settled down.
There was a soft cough. "I've never met a famous person before."
I looked up at a pair of startling blue eyes. Phil introduced himself as both a reader of the blog and a volunteer at the railway. In return, I babbled. I was overwhelmed - hundreds of miles from Merseyrail, and I have a reader introducing himself. I'm blushing just writing this.
Phil had actually sent me a message on Twitter that morning, which I hadn't got because of the patchy service, offering me a ride on the footplate of the train. Obviously, under normal circumstances, I would have been all over that, but I had a schedule and my OCD wouldn't allow me to vary it. We chatted for a bit, with me burbling absolute nonsense because I was still too embarrassed and shocked to be coherent, then he went back to his sandwich.
Once I'd finished my drink, I went into the small museum attached to the station. It's an absolute gem of its type, and I can highly recommend it. This kind of specialist museum can be alienating to people who don't have a deep interest in the subject, and I've been to transport exhibitions in the past that are aimed solely at people who hear the word "bogie" and don't giggle. The Talyllyn museum gives you an overview of both the narrow gauge trains of Wales, and also the history of the line and its preservation, and it neither patronises or assumes you have a load of specialist knowledge.
The Talyllyn Railway was the first in the world to be preserved by volunteers when the line closed. Opened as an attraction in 1951, the railway is the grand-daddy of all the other Little Railways that track across Wales. There's something about the Talyllyn which makes it stand out though; it seems like a genuinely happy railway, well-run and pleasant, preserved through love and respect for the past. Some heritage railways are run by people who just want to play at being the head of a franchise, and become soulless. The Talyllyn still feels fun.
Whodoesn't fancy a rough pup now and then?
It came as no surprise that the Reverend WV Audrey was a fan and a volunteer on the Talyllyn railway, and he incorporated a fictionalised version of it into the Thomas the Tank Engine books. I doubt he would have been half as inspired if the railway wasn't so pretty. The museum preserves his study, which had a three dimensional map of Sodor on the wall, but disappointingly few Ringo Starr albums.
Phil suddenly reappeared and pressed a copy of the official guide on me, which he'd wangled out of the marketing department. I've said it before and I'll say it again: give me a freebie and I'm yours.
I watched a train pull in, emptying its cargo of pensioners looking for "something to do" onto the platform, then sadly left for Tywyn station. After the prettily restored Wharf station, it could only disappoint me, but a bricked up station building seemed to be just there to annoy me. There were some mosaics on the walls, representing the local area of natural beauty, but what really grabbed my attention was on the opposite platform: an ALF!
It's not perfect, but an excellent effort. Well done Tywyn. Good try.
