NORTH WALES COAST RAILWAY :NOTICE BOARD

Rheilffordd arfordir gogledd Cymru: Hysbysfwrdd

22 December 2025

In Cardiff Museum

Forthcoming events

See our Calendar Page for operator details.

December 2025

Monday 1 December Midland Pullman Edinburgh Christmas Pullman from Bangor to Edinburgh

January 2026

Thursday 8 January Clwyd Railway Circle David Jones 'Footage of Railways in the 1960s'

Altrincham Electric Railway Preservation Society Friday 9 January John Hooley "A Midlands Miscellany".

February 2026

Thursday 5 February Clwyd Railway Circle Annual General Meeting followed by David Jones 'Recollections of CRC Railway Trips 2005 to 2017, Still Images and Video Footage'

Friday 13 February Altrincham Electric Railway Preservation Society Paul Shackcloth "People and Places 8".

March 2026

Thursday 5 March Clwyd Railway Circle Peter Hanahoe 'North Wales Railways in the 1980s'

April 2026

Thursday 2 April Clwyd Railway Circle David Parry 'Swiss Rack Railways'

May 2026

June 2026

Saturday 13 June North West Rail and Transport Collectors Fair

July 2026

Friday 3 July Saltburn Railtours Saltburn to Llandudno (one way, WCRC diesel hauled)

Monday 6 July Saltburn Railtours Llandudno to Salburn (one way, WCRC diesel hauled)

August 2026

September 2026

Thursday 3 September Clwyd Railway Circle To be announced

October 2026

Thursday 1 October Clwyd Railway Circle To be announced

November 2026

Thursday 5 November Clwyd Railway Circle To be announced

December 2026

Thursday 3 December Clwyd Railway Circle Ian Mainprize 'German Railway Development'

Other useful sites:

For up-to-date North Wales information
join the North Wales Trains News group

North Wales Coast Railway website created and compiled by Charlie Hulme

On 13 November at Conwy 3S71 56 302 and 56 078 at 10:08 with 21:13 Coleham to via Holyhead to Coleham Rail Head Treatment Train. Picture by John Wilkinson.

Time for change

For various reasons, including lack of interest in the Coast trains, neglect of other websites and projects, and slowing down of my old brain, as from this issue the updates will be fortnightly. This also gives time for myself and hopefully other contributors to write more text to go with the pictures. I hope people understand my reasons; I had considered closing down altogether, but we'll try this. The next update will be on 5 January.

On the subject of photographs, back in the 90s every took pictures with digital cameras, and knew how to edit using a computer how to easily alter the file name to the format which is essential for my system. In particular, the filename should begin with your initials e.g. ch so the pictures are together when I upload them. Today many use a phone camera, but it would be a big help if you could read the contributions page.

All the best for Christmas - Charlie

Newsreel

Colas Rail's 70 812 made a couple of trips to Penmaenmawr on Thursday 18 and Friday 19 December. On the Thursday it arrived quite late so only 6 wagons were loaded. It left Penmaenmawr with just the loaded wagons. The following day it returned with these now empty wagons and left Penmaenmawr pretty much on time with a fully loaded train.

TfW's 67 010 also ran an additional Holyhead to Crewe return service on 20 December as a 'crowd buster'. It was good to see the initiative being taken. Interestingly, a coach ran from Bangor to Chester at pretty much the same time.

On 17 December DRS ran one of their twice-yearly 68 009 to keep the path, and insure that the equipment at Valley is available. 68 009 is seen leading the outbound flasks past Conwy as 6D43 09:50 Crewe Coal Yard to Valley Nuclear Electric. 68 005 was on the rear.

In other news: Ivor Bufton reports that ex-TfW unit 175 001 has become the first Class 175 to enter revenue earning service with GWR today on 15 December, working:

2C26 13:40 Plymouth to Penzance
2P21 15:52 Penzance to Plymouth

Shrewsbury oddity - report by John Oates

Here’s something I’ve not seen before on my occasional visits to Shrewsbury:

Saturday 6 December, 1D12 Birmingham International to Holyhead / Aberystwyth was a platform change into platform 3. Formed of 158 819 & 158 823, the train was split with 823 then being signalled using rarely-used signal SBJ99 southwards.

Above, the now 1J09 10:33 to Aberystwyth approaching signal SBJ99 ...

... and then disappearing around the corner.

It was a very busy morning at Shrewsbury with not only the beginning of Christmas shopping, but also Wrexham playing away at Preston. 1D12, formed of the aforementioned 158 819 left Shrewsbury 11 minutes due to problems in the Birmingham area, but then 16 late from Ruabon and 21 late from Wrexham General (after 7 minutes loading passengers – or not ….). The newly introduced doubling of the service between Wrexham and Chester should prove very successful. We hope all the fans made it to Preston on time!

Riding the loco-hauled - by Charlie Hulme

Early this month Joanna and I treated ourselves to a First Class trip from Stockport to Cardiff to enjoy the Christmas Market and the joys of the some of the last loco-hauled trains in the country. We started the day with a Northern train from Davenport to Manchester Piccadilly; although the TfW train stops at Stockport, and there is no indication of whether there will would the First Class would be, or the loco would be at the front or rear, and there can be passengers waiting for an Avanti train due on the same platform mingling about.

Once aboard the 12:30, propelled by 67 029 Royal Diamond we had a lovely ride along the Marches to Cardiff although I'm not a great fan of leather seats. The staff brought us coffee or tea soon after departure, and a 'light bites'' menu - we had the 'cheese sandwich with bowl of tomato soup' for £8.99. The cheese is Mature Dragon Welsh Cheddar which is excellent. The full list is on the TfW website.

Arrived - and the image for the scrapbook.

While Cardiff we rodesome local trains: we went to RSPB Newport Levels. and interestingly the train from Cardiff to Newport was one of the six twin 153s with a large section for bikes, destination Cheltenham. For anyone interested in the RSPB site , there is now a bus from the Bus Station that calls there every two hours. The Bus Station at Newport is some distance from the station - take a map! Our return train to Cardiff was a very overloaded 2-car 197. Surely that huge trolley cabinet is a mistake?

Back at Cardiff we also took a ride on the train down to the Bay, where work is in progress to extend and double-track the line. The last time we were there all Bay trains shuttled back and forth to Queen Street, but now some continue to Pontypridd, calling at Cathays station which is close to the Civic area with the Museum. 150 254 is listed as the next TfW 150 to be scrapped.

Our return journey to Stockport, on the 12:53, was powered by 67 017 propelling, and didn't go quite smoothly, although of no fault of the loco. When the train arrived from the depot and opened the doors the catering staff were trying to clear up the First Class coach while passengers was leading. TfW's policy of issuing reservations but with no named seat doesn't help in these situations. In this direction a full meal on offer, but we settled on on other soup and sandwich.

Next. the automatic announcing system on the train was running backwards, announcing Crewe when were arriving at Abergavenny, etc, which the conductor had to apologise. Later, a previous train booked to call at Nantwich had been cancelled, and arrangements were our train to stop there. Then. when we arrived at Crewe, nothing happened for a while until the conductor told us we had to get off and join the next train to Stockport. It turned out that a side door on the Driving Trailer would close properly, and that affected all the other coaches because of the train's safety system.

'Abandon Ship' at Crewe. We found a corner in the smelly vestibule of an Avanti train and arrived home somewhat late. The next day at home, I saw in Real Time Trains that the train had, in fact, carried on to Manchester half-an-hour late. Someone must have found a bigger hammer. All in all, an interesting few days: the cost of the advance first-class ticket Manchester to Cardiff with our 'Two Together Card' was £40.55 each, each way. Highly Recommended, although booking 'advance' is something in a risk as it is not unknown for the loco-hauled to be replaced by a 197 unit.

New DVD - Information by John Wilkinson

The British Rail Motive Power 1981-2004 Vol 16 DVD has just been released through Videoscene. There are three chapters of archive footage that should be of local interest to our viewers:- Chester & Crewe and North Wales.

A journey on board "Daisy" Class 101 3-car DMU from Llandudno to Holyhead on 6 August 1997.

The DVD would be a great Christmas present, full details of the DVD available from the Videoscene website .

From Dave Sallery's archive

37 418 passing Mostyn on an up train, 23 June 1993.

56 113 is on engineering works at Mostyn, 29 January 2017.

66 181 on a stone train to Theale passes Metrolink unit 3037 on a service to Bury, 23 March 2017. These two tracks are worked as separate single lines - Metrolink and Network Rail.

68 016 and 68 027 are seen inside the flask terminal at Valley, 2 July 2017

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