Across the globe, New Year’s Day will resound to the sound of locomotive whistles, as heritage railways near and far mark the start of rail’s 200th anniversary.
The Ffestiniog & Welsh Highland Railways (F&WHR) will be going full-out and ‘Whistling for Wales’ at midday on New Year’s Day as their contribution to the steamy salute… and you can join them, in person or online.
Passengers on the morning ‘Christmas Mountain Spirit’ will hear the train locomotives ‘LINDA’ and ‘BLANCHE’ sound their whistles as the train passes round the iconic spiral at Dduallt.
In Porthmadog, ‘HUGH NAPIER’ and ‘PALMERSTON’ will be in steam and at least one of them will be in Harbour Station for visitors to witness and photograph the occasion.
At the same time, from Rhyd Ddu, the railways will be live streaming from their Facebook page with general manager Paul Lewin and NG/G16 No.143, which will be the loco working the ‘Christmas Cwellyn’ train from Caernarfon on that day.
Readers are encouraged to help them get the year of celebrations off to a great start by joining passengers on one of their New Year’s Day trains, visiting Harbour Station or logging on to Facebook to enjoy the livestream.
Details of F&WHR train services and online tickets are available at festrail.co.uk/trains
