DerekC
Established Member
I am trying to plan a birthday trip in October via the Conwy Valley, Ffestiniog and Welsh Highland Railways. I am thinking to base myself in Caernarfon.
An anticlockwise tour works OK leaving by WHR train at 10:00 and arriving back at Caernarfon (courtesy of the 5C bus from Bangor) at 17:24. However when I tried the plan clockwise, thinking it might be nice to get the bus out of the way first, it can't be done. The first Conwy Valley train I can catch (there being a 3-hour gap in the service) arrives at Blaenau Ffestiniog at 11:36, just in time to see the tail lamp of the Ffestiniog train which left at 11:35! The next FR train misses the last WHR train at Porthmadog. I find this a quite unbelievable piece of timetabling. Has anyone any experience of trying this? Does the FR train really leave just as the ATW train is pulling in? If so what on earth was the point of building a joint station?
An anticlockwise tour works OK leaving by WHR train at 10:00 and arriving back at Caernarfon (courtesy of the 5C bus from Bangor) at 17:24. However when I tried the plan clockwise, thinking it might be nice to get the bus out of the way first, it can't be done. The first Conwy Valley train I can catch (there being a 3-hour gap in the service) arrives at Blaenau Ffestiniog at 11:36, just in time to see the tail lamp of the Ffestiniog train which left at 11:35! The next FR train misses the last WHR train at Porthmadog. I find this a quite unbelievable piece of timetabling. Has anyone any experience of trying this? Does the FR train really leave just as the ATW train is pulling in? If so what on earth was the point of building a joint station?