Adventuring on the Brecon Mountain Railway
The Gower was lovely but our three weeks in Wales was approaching its finale and we wanted to end this somewhere spectacular. So where better than Bannau Brycheiniog – a place I had long wanted to see for its massive peaks, glittering lakes, and abundance of wild beauty. What we did not expect was the abundance of road works that plagued our journey along the A465. It seemed every road in this part of Wales is currently being dug up, repaved, or otherwise closed for no apparent reason. The beautiful landscape was scarred by the ugly grey tracks of hatchling roads, and great flocks of JCBs ambled around on the hillsides, munching up the grass like mechanical yellow sheep.
Our destination was a farm Aire in Pontsticill – if we could get there. The roads surrounding the area were also being dug up and our Sygic Satnav (a paid for trucker system for large vehicles) tried to divert us down a short road so steep it may as well have been a vertical drop, with a 90 degree bend at the end of it. Thankfully, the locals had placed a large handwritten card on a signpost at the corner saying “Do not follow GPS, you WILL get stuck”. The certainty in this pronouncement was terrifying as the logical continuation of thought (or illogical depending on how you view the imagination) was that you would be trapped in your vehicle, wedged in by two cliff faces that narrowed into a crevasse without the possibility of reversing out. “Thank God I have a sunroof!” You might say. Well, don’t get too smug because in this horrible crevasse in my imagination, the cliff narrows overhead too so you might be able to squeeze a hand out but that would be it. You would be stuck for all time: a skeleton in a deep, dark crack in the earth; a cautionary tale for those who choose to blindly follow GPS rather than listen to the wisdom of Welsh locals.
Tom and I chose the wisdom of Welsh locals and survived to spend two idyllic days as the only guests at Heddfan farm in Pontsticill. We did very little other than soak up the sun, read books and hike along the Taff way. The Aire was very close to Pant, where the Brecon Mountain Railway is based. A quick google search confirmed that yes their trains were dog friendly so we decided that Tess needed more cultural capital in her life and therefore must experience a steam train.
Actually though, I needed to experience a steam train. I’ve never been on one (shocking!) and there is something just so magical and exciting about a steam train – something that speaks of adventure and endless possibility – and top hats and monocles (which I unhelpfully had not packed in the motorhome for our trip). I imagined taking my seat on the train and my legs bumping into something under the seat. I bend down to look and find an old suitcase – inside is a wad of money and tickets to Vienna. A mystery to solve… See? You wouldn’t get that on an EMR train! Saying that though, I didn’t get the abandoned suitcase and tickets to Vienna on the Brecon Mountain Railway either, but I did have an adventure up the mountain and I did get a mystery to solve.
The Brecon Mountain Railway opened in 1980 and today follows part of what was once the Brecon and Merthyr Railway from Pant to Torpantau, which is 1,313 feet above sea level. The original line was built in 1859 – the same year Big Ben chimed for the first time, the year the building of the Suez Canal began, and Charles Darwin sat down to write The Origin of Speices, back when steam trains were still fairly new and Merthyr Tydfil was one of the world’s biggest producers of iron. For over 80 years, trains ran across this line, transporting not only iron ore and coal, but passengers too. However, the increase in car ownership following World War II and the decline in industry needing coal and iron, meant that the railway was operating at a loss and eventually closed in 1964.
For 16 years, only the memory of the trains floated up the mountain hillside and what was once Pant station became an abandoned shelter, only visited by sheep. On the day of our visit however, Pant station was absolutely rammed with people which isn’t so great when you have a reactive dog who hates anyone she doesn’t know coming near her but who has a face that makes people just want to pet her. Getting to the platform was a challenge but if you are a regular reader of my blog, you will know that I am skilled at Minesweeper and therefore achieved this with minimal hassle.
There are two trains that run from Pant to Torpantau today: No 1, the ‘Santa Teresa’ locomotive built in 1897 and which was brought back to Wales from Brazil. The second train, and the one that transported us, was the Baldwin Locomotive, built in 1930 in Philadelphia. This train was used in South Africa hauling limestone, which it obviously didn’t much like as it ran away. Yes, it literally because a driverless, run-away train – and who can blame it? Unfortunately, it fell off the rails and was wrecked but was lovingly rebuilt in the UK. I’m glad I didn’t know the train’s history until after our journey as this would have been quite terrifying. Perhaps though, the Baldwin is happier today as it didn’t attempt to run on the mountain – and I am very grateful for this!
The Brecon Mountain Railway runs through ancient pine forests of skinny, impossibly tall trees – bordered with peppermint ferns and violently purple wildflowers – and past a reservoir where a village was drowned beneath the silver waters. In drought, the skeletons of these buildings rise above the water for a glimpse of the sun before the rain comes and swallows them again. At Dolygaer station, the water appears as flashes of silver between the darkness of the trees before a brief glimpse of the reservoir floats into view – a sole kayaker pulling smoothly through the water like an insect, immersed in the beauty of the morning.
Inside, the carriages are a rhythmically uncomfortable way to travel, far removed from the comforts of 21st century expectation. The seats are made of orange wooden slats worn smooth by a thousand bums, they are slightly too small and slightly too close together which has the uncomfortable effect of bringing you into too-friendly distance with your travelling companions. This unusual proximity with strangers has the curious impact of normalising eye-contact and pleasantries with people from other parties. It made me wonder how the reserved and private Victorians dealt with this. Looking around at the carriage, I could almost see them through the sun-haze: primly upright posture, ironed newspapers unfolded in front of them, murky brown smoke from their tobacco pipes filling the carriage, demure hands folded in demure laps, their suitcases with tickets to Vienna packed underneath their seats…
Today, a teen in a jumper with ‘Sol Cal 1986’ emblazoned across the front is told off by his mum for being on his phone (“that’s not why I bought you a ticket!”). Further up the train, a man in a Vans cap shares a mega-bag of Doritos with his companion. Outside, the perpetual sound of the thump, thump, clack, clack of the train clatters on as together, we all glide up the mountain towards Torpantau. On the approach, there is just wildness: no roads, cars, pylons – just the world as it was intended, casually and under-statedly being magnificent and beautiful – then the line ends abruptly and you are looking out over a deep valley at the smoked-sage and olive pines amassed on either side like two armies separated by an impassible no-man’s-land. In the distance, the hooked shape of Pen Y Fan is a pale grey ghost outlined in the white of the sky.
At Torpantau, the train stops for fifteen minutes to allow the engine to uncouple from the carriages, run to the other side of the train and reattach itself backwards, ready to pull the carriages back down the mountain. I was looking forward to taking in the view – one I had paid for, so not really earned under my own steam – but I was happy to overlook that. What I was not able to overlook was the massive grey car park that marred the view. Day trippers were climbing out of cars in their trainers with their cans of coke and bags of McDonalds (okay, I made that last bit up – but you get the picture). Apparently, there is a great cafe just down the path.
This depressed me. There I was, at a place steeped in history, having arrived at the pinnacle of my adventure, and that pinnacle was a car park I could have driven to. This anti-climatic moment made me wonder what the cost to nature is in making access to remote places too easy? I had read just that morning about the devastating impact of Instagrammers on Pen Y Fan this August – who arrive in hoards and swarm the mountain like bugs for that one image to post on their social media, blazing new trails through undisturbed bracken, distressing wildlife and leaving in their wake, the debris of their thoughtlessness as well as their lunches.
Earlier this Summer, I saw a news report in which a woman complained about the lack of a dog-poo bin on Thorpe Cloud (a little mountain in Derbyshire). Her dog had done his business on the way up and she was complaining that there wasn’t a bin at hand in the middle of the beauty of nature (and of course, a road to service that bin), for her convenience and I fear it is only a matter of time before we lost sight of what we have and a bin IS put on the top of all the mountains for human convenience because humans are not willing to carry their own litter. Whilst it is undoubtedly important that everyone should be able to access nature, if it is achieved too easily, it becomes like accessing Primark and the respect that visitors must have if these places are to remain wild, is lost.
My disillusionment complete, I turned to admire the engine. You will have to forgive my technical expertise here but it was a black, shiny thing, all gleaming brass handles and buttons. It puffed back towards the carriages like a beast from legend, emerging from its lair, giant feathers of smoke – ostrich feathers – billowing out of its single vast nostril. The power of this beast to transport us up a mountain was awe-inspiring – and now it was ready to take us back down again.
I mentioned at the start of this account that the Brecon Mountain Railway delivered on its promise of a mystery and it really did. Sitting opposite Tom and I was a couple who seemed mismatched in every way. He was quite a bit older, dressed casually in a royal blue jumper, jeans and scuffed boots, whilst she had obviously put effort into her appearance wearing careful daytime makeup with all the trimmings: eyebrows, contouring, lipstick; polished toenails; short shorts, nice top, gold sandals, earrings. It wasn’t just their appearance that was mismatched though, it was their conversation. She educated him about ultra-processed foods (did you know that a bran flake from Tesco is only processed, and is therefore okay?) whilst he told her the history of things we passed on the train route. Both listened with politeness to each other but their lack of interrogatives at the end of each conversational gambit gave them both the air of waiting for the talking to finally be over. I am a teacher – I am exceptionally experienced in knowing what this looks and sounds like.
The great mystery then was the exact nature of their relationship. They were not related as there was no allusion to any shared experience. They were quite clearly two strangers flung together but why would two strangers take a trip on the Brecon Mountain Railway? What a marvellous mystery! Only a steam train journey could produce one of such rare quality. Were they there to hone their instructional ability? If so, why would two such mismatched souls be placed together? Could they have booked individual tickets for the train and have been flung together in a serendipitous twist of fate? Well, no – because otherwise, initial conversation would have made them abandon the painful attempts to converse. Also, the woman was dressed to impress. The only conclusion we could come to was that we were witnessing the cringe-worthy awkwardness of a first date.
It was brilliant.
Now we had established the relationship, we could be casual observers to the blossoming of love – or in this case, the wilting of a tiny seedling that had barely poked its head above the coldness of the lonely ground. He began most of the conversations and filled the stretched silences suggesting he was woefully more interested than she was – or just a nicer person alltogether. At the end of the adventure, as we were pulling into Pant station, he reminded her of their original plans to have dinner following the train ride and she was trying to turn this into a quick bite to eat in the station cafe.
What happened next? Well I would like to tell you that they lived happily ever after but at that moment on the platform, a scout group erupted from the next carriage and converged on the cowering Tess and I lost sight of them forever.
Our short stint in Bannau Brycheiniog was over and we were heading North to Powys that afternoon. Bannau Brycheiniog was not done with us though. No matter which route we took, we met with either a closed road or a circular system that brought us back to Pant. Have you seen the film, The Perfect Storm with George Clooney? There is one bit in it where they are in the eye of the storm and for a moment, they see the sun again, a burst of light and calm in the terrifying darkness of the storm – and for a moment they think they will get out… Then it goes dark again and the wind picks up and they realise the storm has trapped them and will never let them go. Well this is what leaving Pant was like.
Google maps was no help as it would not acknowledge that the roads were closed and kept trying to divert us through construction sites and across unploughed fields. The Sygic trucker Sat Nav was even worse. It KNEW we were a 7.3 metre motorhome, we had told it this in the settings, but it still spitefully diverted us down a long and narrow lane, which ended with a 90 degree right angle (a delight of rural Wales) across a skinny stone bridge. Tom attempted the manoeuvre, whilst I helpfully sat in the passenger seat, hands clamped over eyes (and yes it was helpful as otherwise I’d have been screaming!) but ended up having to reverse back up the road as there was no way we’d fit through. Finally though, we must have pleased the Gods of Bannau Brycheiniog with enough swear words as they finally released us and we were able to leave. If Wales has taught us one thing during the past two days, it’s how to reverse a motorhome.
