Triplets

We can’t manage a line up of four Pullman observation cars like the FR did recently at Harbour Station, but watch this space....

Himself decided a little photo call was in order after the final assembly of 152, posed in the fiddle yard with 150 (not named Gwynedd in Bron Hebog-land, and Glaslyn.

The design change to 152 with the two pillars at the front was on account of customer feedback from 150 with its single post in the middle.

It’s a convenient way of quickly telling which is which but I still can’t decide which I prefer.

Not Seiont

At last my mole has come up with the goods and I have a document which appears to be an outline plan for the new WHR observation carriage, which in turn means I have a project to work on.

The new carriage is very different in detail from the first one, Glaslyn, although very obviously sharing a family resemblance.

One thing which amused me on the drawing I have is a glimpse it offers into the politics of FR/WHR names.

The first carriage was officially named Glaslyn by no less a personage than HM Queen, who rode in it to Dinas for the ceremony with the carriage marshalled (for security reasons we presume) in the middle of the train, making a mockery of the huge curved window at the front which is the iconic feature of this generation of observation carrs.

The second one, we now know, is to be called Gwyrfai.

In the drawing I have, in the traditional Pullman name space in the middle of the bodyside, it has the words 'Not Seiont'- which is the river which flows into the Menai Strait right past the railway's northern terminus at Caernarfon.

Now, would seem a logical choice given how the Glaslyn flows into Porthmadog Harbour at the other end - or perhaps we should say the middle? - of the line.

It doesn't begin with the letter G, though.

Something tells me there's a story behind this.....