Wales

As on many hikes, most of the routes up Snowdon give wide panoramic views of the landscape. Assisting in this is that Wales has relatively few trees.

Here's another view of the landscape on Snowdon.

I don't remember the name of this body of water, but my understanding was that it was an artificial reservoir. further information would be welcome. I got especially lucky with this photo in terms of the exposure and the reflection in the water.

This, if I'm not mistaken, is another angle on the reservoir, but the gloom makes it less dramatic.

I took several photos, at different exposures, from this position. I was trying to get the cloud ceiling, as I thought it was dramatic.

This is the benchmark at the summit, which is actually a mound of rocks that probably isn't natural. It was crowded with people, and there was a line. The lines on the benchmark indicate the distances to different landmarks.

Here's a view from the summit. The summit was in the clouds when we arrived, and gradually cleared up. In the meantime, it was cold, wet, and generally unpleasant. The crowds were enormous, in spite of the weather and the moderately difficult route up, and the cafe was so overcrowded that it was physically difficult to move in and out. This sounds like a frivilous, yuppie, complaint, but when it's this crowded you need restrooms. For both food and restrooms, it seemed hopelessly inadequate.

The Snowdon Mountain Railway, while only 4.7 miles long, is so steep that it's a cog railway. It's also 2'7.5" narrow-gauge. Built in 1896, it is still partly steam powered. Here you can see both steam and diesel power. The terminal at the bottom of the mountain is at Llanberis, which is also a station on the Llanberis Lake Railway and the Carnarvonshire Railway. The Summit station is integrated into the cafe mentioned earlier.

Here's the extreme grade to the summit. I don't actually precisely what it is. Some particularly ambitious people were jogging to the summit alongside the tracks.

Here's a better look at one of the steam locomotives.

Here's a closeup of the tracks, with the cog in the middle.

This is the National Rail (ex-British Rail) Blaenau Ffestiniog Station, which is shared with the Ffestiniog Railway. It's at the south end of the Conwy Valley Line from Llandudno Junction, which was originally built in 1879 by the London & North Western Railway. I was visiting the Ffestiniog for at least the third time that I can remember (I'll have to check my records to know for sure, as I don't remember), and this time I was a bit confused about what to photograph. When I first visited, it was one of the last places to be served by ex-BR Class 101 DMU's, which were at that time the oldest DMU's that I had ridden on outside of heritage units, as they had been built as far back as 1956. I would later ride the very last run of any Class 101 on December 22nd, 2003, from Manchester Piccadilly to Rose Hill and back. Today the Conwy Valley Line is served by Class 150 DMU's, which are also quite old at this point, having been introduced in 1984 (I've read some sources that say 1976, so if I'm wrong please correct me). These are commonly called "Sprinter" DMU's, with the last Class 153 Class being called "SuperSprinters."

This was shortly after departing Blaenau Ffestiniog. You can't see it yet in this photo, but the Ffestiniog is still mostly steam.

Here's a shot on one of the first curves, showing the Fairlie Double-Bogie steam locomotive. The Ffestiniog is the largest operators of these locomotives in the world, having had them since the 1870's. Interestingly for emissions, maintenance, and other reasons, two were built after BR phased out steam (the Ffestiniog has always been private anyway), in 1979 and 1992.

Here's an alternate of the last shot.

This is Tan-y-Bwlch station, which is the most important intermediate station on the line.

Here you can see the boxy water tower.

Here's the station sign. As on other narrow-gauge lines, the passenger coaches on the Ffestiniog are very small by rail standards, although not necessarily cramped. They're often non-corridor, and all of them lack vestibules.