Christmas on the tracks
Contributors are not employed, compensated or governed by TD, opinions and statements are from the contributor directly
A group of railway enthusiasts will be celebrating Christmas by laying track and painting locomotives at a museum in Porthmadog.
While others are opening presents and enjoying a lie in, four volunteers from the Welsh Highland Heritage Railway will be up bright and early to start rebuilding a section of the main line, and restoring one of Britain’s most powerful narrow gauge diesel locomotives.
Among the four is James Hewett, who’s been spending Christmas Day at the WHHR for the last six years. He said: “A group of us got sick of spending Christmas with boring relatives whom we hardly speak to over the year and thought - why not spend the day at the railway. It’s become a bit of a tradition.
“But it’s certainly not a case of saying ‘bah humbug’ to Christmas. We don’t have a Christmas tree on site, but we have been known to decorate the odd railway carriage with festive lights. We’ve also run a Christmas freight train in previous years to take the turkey down to the railway’s Tea Room.”
The main job for the day is to start re-laying the main line with new rails and fixings, a job which will continue over the rest of the Christmas period. It can be quite a strenuous job, and also a bit on the dirty side.
The volunteers all work at the WHHR in their spare time throughout the year. But they will be finishing work slightly earlier than a normal working day, to give them time to have Christmas Dinner with all the usual trimmings!
Nigel Hanwell, another of the volunteers, will be travelling from Chichester in West Sussex to help with the festive working party. He said: “Many children around the UK will spend Christmas morning playing with train sets – it’s just that ours won’t fit inside Santa’s sack.
“I’ve no family at home now, so I thought I’d do something a bit different. More importantly, lifting heavy lumps of metal in the wonderful Welsh scenery means I won’t feel guilty about eating lots later in the day.”
-ends-
Comments are closed.