Painting The First Bridge

Himself has been lured away again for a spell of 12 inches to the foot modelling, which partly explains why in recent days this blog has been filled with waffle rather than posts about actual progress.

The cause this time has been the repair and repainting of Tan y Bwlch footbridge.

(Some might say the real footbridge but we'd never stray into controversies like that on here, oh no, not us....)

It's one of the few remaining monuments from a frantic period of development on the FR when function mattered far more than form.

Form is rather expensive, though, and there weren't so many people with deep pockets or agencies with funds to distribute in the late '60s and early '70s.

That said, it is interesting to note that the construction of this bridge - which was felt to be necessary when a more formal island platform was created after the reopening to Dduallt - did receive some corporate sponsorship from, of all people, the owners of the John Player tobacco brand.

That may seem hard to imagine to some people these days.

Pedants may take issue with me calling it the first bridge in the title, because properly speaking it was the second footbridge on the site, but it is the first, and the only one, to allow access to the platform.

(Steady now....)

As a child of the '70s It is also the only way I have ever known Tan y Bwlch station.

Incidentally, the person in the foreground holding the drill - in what could be construed as a mildly threatening manner - is none other than my mother.

No wonder Himself always does as he's told!