Pontypool and Blaenavon Railway
Blaenavon's Heritage Railway - A family day out, whatever the weather!
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Click HERE for archived news
GER Directors Saloon Number 3 - as seen in the Railway Children, Toronto, Canada.
This luxurious first class carriage used in the Canadian production of the Railway Children will be making its way to Blaenavon in 2012. It can be hired for birthdays, anniversaries, weddings and other occasions. Our bespoke service is designed to satisfy all individual needs including interior decoration and catering, available as a private train or attached to any service train.
Travel in style like the directors of the Great Eastern Railway once would have in their own private saloon. Stately Trains have restored the carriage to its former glory, so don't miss out!
The carriage will be available to hire throughout the year - for more information please contact Alex on 07980595818 or email events@pbrly.co.uk
Photo courtesy of Stately Trains
23rd October
Last weekend saw our diesel gala which was for the greater part a very sucessful event. The Saturday saw 31203 working its first trains for a number of years and newcomer
37219 hauling its first trains on our railway, following its delivery from the Mid Norfolk Railway. Unfortunatly 31203 developed an electrical fault on the Sunday which saw her
being pronouced as out of use, despite our best efforts to rectify the fault. Other than that, the comments around the internet are very favourable with some cracking photos taken over the weekend.
Alistair Grieve has his photos in the usual place (his smug mug site) as well as various
other photographs of the event on the internet as well. Therea are some excellent videos on youtube from this weekend and past events, if you havent visited our railway yet (why not?), then these are worth viewing just to see what you are missing.
30th September
With the Diesel Gala looming ever closer, it has been requested by the Diesel Loco Department that a page be created to give up to date information
on the Current Status of the loco's. Please check this site regularly to ensure you have the up to date information.
26th September
Over the weekend, the railway operated two days worth of Photo Charters and a Driver
Experience Day.
The Driver Experience was a first for the railway and proved to be successful with three participants taking on the duties of Cleaner,
Fireman and Driver. Their day started out with the preparation and cleaning of the locomotive, 'Sir Gomer' followed by a "traditionally
cooked" bacon roll. The participants then went for a brew in the tea room, whilst the train, consisting of Sir Gomer, 3x Mk1's and the
Hudswell was made up and the necessary brake tests conducted. With the train in the platform, it was time for the participants to take
control. With a maximum of 4 persons allowed on the footplate, the opportunity was given for one participant to ride and drive the
Hudswell during their spell away from the locomotive.
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Further photos can be found on Alistair Grieve's SmugMug Site
One of the representitives of "sir Gomer" has added some comments to their blog regarding the steam gala.
23rd September
Photo's from last weekends Steam Gala added.
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12th September
In preperation for the Steam Gala
this comming weekend, the first of the visiting engines, Peckett 0-6-0ST "Sir Gomer"
has arrived and has received a test run:
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One driving car from the 117 DMU has been receiving a wash and general tidy in preperation for its use on the Big Pit Branch, although its use will be in the form of hauled stock
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Work is progressing at a lightning pace on the Big Pit branch. All of the stops are being pulled out to complete the works for Fridays opening:
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Work on the Station Building at Furnace Sidigs also continues with the stone work on the platform side starting to take shape.
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30th August
Last weekend (28th and 29th August) saw the annual Transport Rally held at the railway.
Some pictures are below:
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Further pictures are available on Smug Mug
Work is progressing to get Varteg Road bridge ready to accept trackwork once again:
The re-alignment of the Bit Pit Branch has been completed and a start made on the platform
16th August 2011
The weekend of 13th and 14th August saw the railway hold its Anual "Ivor the Engine"
event with over 600 tickets sold over the two days. Along with Ivor, "Jones the
Steam" "Idyis the Dragon", "Dai the Station" and "Mrs Porty" also made an appearance.
| Ivor and Idris. |
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Idris, again proving popular with our younger visitors. |
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| Ivor and his admirers. |
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Once again the Ice Cream Cart proves popular. |
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| Ivor "powers" up the steapest part of the line, under the rail over rail bridge. |
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The "Mog", 71515 provided a supporting role to Ivor, relegated for a change, to the bottom of the train. |
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In other news, work progresses on the station Building at Furnace Sidings as well as the work to complete the extension to Big Big Pit:
| The site of the future Big Pit station showing the realigned track-work |
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Looking towards Furnace sidings from Big Pit Station area. |
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| The interior of the new Furnace Sidings Station Building being fitted out. |
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A more Abstract view of the interior. |
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| The exterior facing the platform is also receiving the attention of a craftsman, in this case, Philip the Stone Mason |
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Elsewhere, the Cycle Track bridge over Varteg has no re-opened: |
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20th July 2011
We now have details of the Model Railway Layouts due to appear at Furnace Sidings
as part of this weekends Model Railway Weekend:
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* Operation of this layout is not currently guaranteed
11th July (updated 12th July)
Click HERE to read a press release concerning
the very successful 1940's weekend held at the railway (and in Blaenavon its self)
on the 9th & 10th July 2011.
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The army pop in to discuss unexploded bombs, and yes that is a real fire |
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DANGER! Unexploeded Bomb. |
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Ready for anything... |
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The Military Police make an appearance |
Further images from the weekend can be found HERE on Alistair Grieve's photo site.
Other snippits of news:
Progress is being made on the station buildings at Furnace Sidings and Blaenavon (High Level)
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The Hudswell Diesel shunter has made a sucessful test run to Blaenavon (High Level).
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No 19 has departed, heading for the Foxfield Railway, here she is being loaded onto the Low Loader...
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... and Ivor has arrived ready for the "Ivor the Engine" event on the13th & 14th of August. Details available HERE.
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9 July 2011
Next
Weekend, 16th and 17th July, No 19, the Pontypool and Blaenavon Railway based Steam
Locomotive (owned by the Bodmin and Wenford Railway) will be visiting the Foxfield
Railway To take part in their Steam Gala. She will be away for one weekend and is
booked to work both Passenger and Freight trains during the weekend.
Click
here for more information.
29th June 2011
We have uploaded to the site, a selection of leaflet images for forthcoming events:
24 June 2011
Details of our Steam Gala, taking place on the 16-18th September and titled 'South
Wales Industrial Steam' have been uploaded
here.
Details of our next event, the 1940's weekend have been uploaded
here.
19 June 2011
This is the first news update in a while due to the passing away of the webmaster,
Dr John Down. An obitury for Dr John was published in the local news paper As always
in these instances, our thoughts are with John's family and friends.
So, because of this, a new webmaster has been drafted into service and has been tasked with not only keeping this site updated but also with the creation of a new-look site. Watch this space for more details.
So, in no particular order here are some of the latest news worthy items:
The new bridges to carry the Railway and Cycle Path over Varteg Road, Blaenavon was fitted into position on the morning of the 18th June. There appears to have been no issues to contend with as both bridges were in place by 8am with the road re-opening to traffic later in the day.
| The new Cycle bridge is lifted into position over Varteg Road. (c) Alistair Greive |
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With the railway bidge in place (and awaiting the attention of the P-Way department), the cycle track bridge is close to touchdown. (c) Alistair Greive |
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| The view up Varteg Road, looking away from Blaenavon. (c) Alistair Greive |
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And the view looking down varteg road towards Blaenavon. (c) Alistair Greive |
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Progress has also been made on the station buildings at Furnace Sidings and Blaenavon High Level:
| The new station building at Furnace Sidings is really starting to look the part with the outer shell more or less complete. There is still a lot of work to do as the interior needs fiiting out and the canapy requires completion. (c) Alistair Greive |
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Progress has also been made on the Station Building at Blaenavon High Level with the outer skin of red brick now in place. (c) Alistair Greive |
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Work has also progressed on the Top Shed Extension with work now complete with the extension already in use.
| In the Top Shed Extension with 37421 on the left and GWR 6479 on the right. (c) Alistair Greive |
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The RMB is also making use of the extension as it receives some well earned attention. (c) Alistair Greive |
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2 February 2011
The commencement of construction of the new Furnace Station building is now imminent.
Construction is due to start on Monday 7 February – weather permitting! Click HERE for details.
Class 08 0-6-0 Shunter, D4157 (Tops No.08927) has been returned 'off hire' after a nine month stay on the PBR. She was hired to help with the ‘top and tail’ demands that the extension posed, but with sufficient steam power now available, it was felt that continued hire could not be justified. Not entirely unexpectedly she performed her duties well, without fuss or bother, typical of the class, and provided our photographers with some interesting photographic opportunities. She left the railway during the afternoon of the 2nd
16 January 2011
PDF files of past copies of our magazine, numbers 112,113 and 114 have been uploaded.
Look out for 115 (Autumn 2010) which will appear when Top Line 116 is issued as
hard copy in a month or so. Click HERE for details
8 January 2011)
Like 2009, the season started with snow. During the first day of operations, there
was an impressive sprinkling of snow; and each weekend the snow got deeper, so that
by our final weekend, (if you can still remember the weekend before Christmas!)
the country had all but ground to a halt. All over the country the ‘big’ railway
was suffering delays and cancellations– but not the PBR! The first train of the
season was best part of half an hour late, but all other services ran broadly to
time. The real problem was the roads, but once again, our volunteers pulled out
all the stops to ensure the access road, car park a nd platforms were clear of ice
and snow, and things were made as safe as conditions would allow. The few images
below give an impression. There would have been more, but our not so resident photographer
was snowed-in up in Birmingham!.
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| Even though it is only just past 2.30pm shadows are lengthening as passengers with parcels from Santa pass potential passengers without parcels. Loco 71515 waits to take the 3.00pm train from Furnace Sidings station up to the Whistle Inn – and Santa | Santa Specials are designed for families – but not all at once. But here they are, so we’ve had to find a few more chairs. |
8 January 2011
It’s been a while since we last reported on Varteg Road bridge, on 2 February 2009
to be be precise, and we opened the batting, so to speak, on this website on 14
November 2008, but it looks as is if physical work on the bridge will start on Monday
10 January. For a variety of historical reasons,we are not managing this project
directly. Torfaen County Borough Council are handling the work. The outcome will
be, as we reported a year ago, two bridges, side-by-side. One will carry the railway
southwards towards Varteg, and Talywain, the other, of much more slender construction,
will carry the leisure route which currently accommodates the cyclepath, and also
provides a route for walkers, and those on horseback. The work is expected to last
for four months and the cost is reported at over £300,000
As soon as there is anything to see we will be up there with our notebooks and cameras, and will report what is going under on under our Development section HERE, where we have filed our earlier reports and pictures.
1 January 2011
We traditionally report on our year end figures at the end of the year. Our number
crunchers obviously enjoyed themselves too much over Christmas, so it was less than
24 hours ago that the news came in.
Nevertheless, here they are, and what figures they are!
- Summer Season – 10674 – 47.2% up on last year’s 7253
- Santa Season – 1903 – 9.1% down on last year’s 2093
- Overall – 12,577 – 34.6% up on last year’s 9346
Last year we said that we hoped we’d break through the 10,000 barrier. Not only did we so do, but with a margin of over 2500 extra passengers. In many ways it has been a year of extraordinary upheaval. We finally opened nearly two months late due to the 2009/2010 winter – remember that! Because of the snow, we had to close the railway on and off for the first two months of the season whilst engineering works and training was completed, and whilst we waited for approval from HM Railway Inspector.
The Summer season was very good indeed, once again the most successful event was the Hallowe’en Special services, and the GWR 175 Gala with City of Truro and the archetypal autotrain really was a delight. Other events continued to boost passenger numbers, so be the time the end of the summer season came it was already clear that we had broken the 10,000 barrier.
The Santa Season was a little disappointing. Of course we only ran for seven days during the Santa Season as against eight last year, however if the passenger numbers per day are calculated then we did marginally better this year on a per day basis.
We now look forward to the challenges that 2011 will present, - but just how are we going to beat 12,577?