A North Wales memory, and puzzle

[Calthrop]

I have a faint and fragmentary, but cherished, memory from a summer in the early 1950s: my parents, and myself aged five or six, were on holiday, based in Chester, and took a day’s trip involving a special tour train for holidaymakers, in North Wales. My memories involve travelling through beautiful Welsh hill-and-mountain scenery, “somewhere”; and, as part of the tour, pausing at Llangollen (I recall standing on the station platform there and admiring the loco’s wheels and motion), where the tour included an – again remembered for certain – horse-drawn boat trip on the canal.

There are on record as having been a feature in the early 1950s, BR’s “North Wales Land Cruise”, and “Cambrian Radio Cruise” – but again as a matter of record, the basic circuit of these was (in whichever direction) Rhyl – Ruthin – Corwen – Dolgellau – Barmouth – Afonwen – Bangor – North Wales coast line: definitely not involving Llangollen. Might anyone know of a regularly-running “relative” in those years, of the abovementioned “Cruises”, whose itinerary included Llangollen and a canal trip? – or was that on which I travelled, perhaps a rare “ad hoc” excursion which was never regularly scheduled? This oddity has been tantalising me on and off, for decades.

 

[Taunton]

I believe the horse drawn canal boat is still in business on that stretch of the canal from Chirk to Llangollen, still run by the same family. But I'd be surprised if a special train connected with it, because the boat only holds about 50 people (even then, poor horse), so more likely such a trip would have been just using regular services.

I always thought the circular cruise train trip ran from the North Wales resorts to Chester, thence down to Ruabon and the full length of the line (through Llangollen of course) to Barmouth, then as you describe returning along the North Wales coast again. This would suit the outward part being handled from Chester through to Barmouth, if not Afon Wen, by one Wrexham Croes Newydd loco crew. I'll bet the WR and LMR supplied their own locos on their own stretches.

 

[Calthrop]

Taunton, thanks. Everything I've read, would seem to indicate that the North Wales "Cruise" trains did the circuit as in my OP -- joining the Ruabon-to-Barmouth line at Corwen (notwithstanding withdrawal of regular passenger services over parts of the Rhyl -- Corwen line at various times in the first half of the '50s) -- not involving Chester.

www.nwrail.org.uk/nw1006c.htm

My parents were not railway enthusiasts as such, so I feel sure that the expedition would have been one special treat, on one day. I take your point, though, about boat and horse capacity. It was all sixty-plus years ago, and I was extremely young -- my fragments of memory from those times, are maybe less accurate than I like to think.

I regret that I wasn't born a bit earlier than my birth date of 1948: my memories of Britain's railways in IMO their last years of real glory, with nearly everything steam, are more vague and meagre than I would like. I was at least lucky in that our family did a lot of travelling by train: in the early 1950s our car ownership was on-and-off, and tended to involve not-very-reliable vehicles.