Conwy Valley Railway Museum

[John Luxton]

On Monday whilst on my Wales Rover I went down to Blaenau Ffestiniog and spotted the rather decrepit state of the Conwy Valley Railway Museum. I recall visiting here as a youngster not long after it opened in the 1970s and it was very good. Whilst I quite often pass through Betws y Coed in the car I have not been up to the museum, but whilst the train stopped there I had a good look.

It is very, very tatty. The sign above the entrance - the lettering looks as though its come from Fawlty Towers. The rolling stock appears to be rotting. As the train moved off I noticed that the electric tramway appears to disappear into trees with damaged track and then leads into a collapsed shed!

Out of curiosity I have looked up recent entries on Trip Advisor there are a few one stars!

I know businesses have suffered a bad time in past couple of years but - somehow this decay would appear to predate covid.

 

[A0]

Out of curiosity I have looked up recent entries on Trip Advisor there are a few one stars!

Looking on TripAdvisor it has 260 reviews of which 17 are "1 star" and 9 are "2 star" - which by my maths means about 10% think it's poor or terrible....... Don't think that's particularly bad - if it had 1/3rd or more at that level I'd agree it would be concerning, but not that level.

 

[John Luxton]

Looking on TripAdvisor it has 260 reviews of which 17 are "1 star" and 9 are "2 star" - which by my maths means about 10% think it's poor or terrible....... Don't think that's particularly bad - if it had 1/3rd or more at that level I'd agree it would be concerning, but not that level.

Yes but there have been five negative reviews in the past 6 months or so and just looking out of the train window it looks shabby and uninviting. The recent photo of the entrance which "Jannyo" posted in April is indicative of what I saw from the train. A little paint and a new name board might be a start - it really does look like "Fawlty Towers". Interesting "Jannyo" has been a regular visitor and has been offended. Something is not right.

 

[Siggy1980s]

It'll get blamed on the great Covid Scapegoat, where by it became used as an excuse to let stuff go to the dogs and/or simply be sub standard.

 

[John Luxton]

It'll get blamed on the great Covid Scapegoat, where by it became used as an excuse to let stuff go to the dogs and/or simply be sub standard.

Possibly as most of the negative reviews have been recent though looking back I found this from 2018.

"I visited the railway with my family my husband and little boy are train mad. The miniature railway is good the steam train was amazing the loco was lovely however the grounds need a lot of tlc and there is so much potential for improvement. The museum was the same very run down and a lot of tlc is needed. The displays needed work doing on them. A person spending 20 minutes standing up vehicles and people who have fallen over would make such a difference. Also a lot of the displays were broken. I felt the one that was there to try and get you to buy a layout was the only one that worked properly.
This site has so much potential if it had some tlc."

Thus it was fraying around the edges back then.

 

[S&CLER]

I had a quick look after we finished our 10 mile walk from Llanwrst to Betws y Coed this afternoon and in the very short time I had to spare was not too impressed.