Let the train take the strain...up Snowdon! (Snowdon Mountain Railway)

Member Name: markos9

Product:	Snowdon Mountain Railway
Date:	22/03/09 (175 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Gets you to the top of Snowdon without any effort

Disadvantages: You can't choose your fellow passengers

During the summer before last, I took my sister and two nieces on the "Snowdon Mountain Railway" to the summit of Snowdon. I've always wanted to do this journey and was really looking forward to it.

At 3560 feet high, Snowdon is the highest mountain in Wales and England. It is also the most accessible mountain top in England or Wales since the train takes the strain! There's hardly any walking at all to do at all.

The Snowdon Mountain Railway trip is not cheap. An adult ticket is an eye watering £23, with a child's ticket being £16. Fortunately, there is an offer of an 'early bird' journey, i.e. the first train of the day at 09:00 of half price. So, despite the 80 mile journey, my nieces were packed into the car, early in the morning so that we could get there for 08:30 and save me £39!

The railway station is at Llanberis, above picturesque Llyn Padarn, and is quite quaint and scenic. The ticket office and waiting platform have an almost 'alpine' look to them.

I was a bit disappointed with the train itself. I was expecting a steam train, but the engine we had was a diesel locomotive. Examination of the website, later at home highlighted that both steam and diesel locomotives are used. The steam engines look much nicer! They are, of course, narrow gauge.

The carriages hold 54 people in reasonable comfort, but here we found the biggest drawback to our day out. You cannot choose who your fellow passengers are! We were unfortunate enough to share our carriage with a group of loud, rude, rowdy, girls. These girls must have been all of 11 years old, but acted like teenagers after a night out! This spoilt it for us, somewhat, but we found we could just ignore them and concentrate on the journey.

The length of the railway is 4 miles. Now a modern train, on the level, would complete the trip in about 5 minutes. Fortunately, to enjoy the trip, the Snowdon trains are a tad slower than British Rail (although they do keep much better time!). The average speed is a whopping 5 miles per hour! If the speed exceeds 7.5 miles per hour, something happens, the brakes come on! Seriously, this is not a problem. Travelling up the steep incline, at just above walking place gives plenty of time to enjoy the fantastic scenery.

One of the biggest problems with this journey is that you cannot plan for the weather. Even on a relatively clear day, the summit of Snowdon can be wreathed in cloud. It was like this on the day we went. Lower down, it was clear and bright, but the last 1000 foot was cloudy and misty. This did give the view a really eerie look, with the sharp bare rocks rising out of the mist as we approached, but did limit what we could see.

The journey to the summit lasted about an hour. We then disembarked and made our way to see the summit. Here the temperature was much colder than at sea level. Despite being July, it was bitterly cold. The top of the mountain is extremely bleak. There seems to be nothing living at all, and all is just bare rock.

There's a small walk to make to get to the true summit which we did quickly. True to form, as soon as we reached the top, my youngest niece wanted to get down again!

The train stays at the top for 30 minutes, allowing you to get a drink and something to eat in the café. We visited the old café, which has now been demolished. I believe the new one is much better than the old.

Back at Llanberis station, we had a quick look in the shop. This is a standard tourists shop selling mainly souvenirs of the day. Not bad, but nothing to get excited about.

Overall, we all thought the day a success. We'd been to the highest mountain in Wales and stayed dry and warm the whole time.

If you want to see what it's like at the roof of Wales, I'd encourage you to give this a go. Try for the 'early bird' trip, realise that the weather's a lottery, and you might really enjoy it.

Summary: A worthwhile, if expensive trip