Conway 5 - Llandudno/the tramride to the top of the Orme /We have been hearing about Wrexham

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You cannot go anywhere these days without talking about Wrexham . Well at least that is what it seems. We are all the news in the USA. We are a global concern with over a million followers on one platform . And our own goalscoring machine Paul Mullin was on American TV this morning . All thanks to our new owners. Today it became even more surreal for us .

Picture the scene . We have parked up in the lovely genteel seaside town of Llandudno. Plenty of car parking . We could easily have parked Gabby along the seafront . The air is bracing . The sound of the seagulls overhead . The wind blowing us a little . We have just walked up partway along the White Rabbit trail . A trail which follows the exploits of Alice in Wonderland . A statue here and there to some character from Wonderland . The shops are mainly independents which makes the place interesting . Not many empty shops either . And not the usual tat so far .

The ironwork on the shop fronts form a different feature . Some tidied up, well looked after and newly painted . Others gently rusting in places . Large churches which seem out of character . Wide streets with spaces up the middle for flower beds or more car parking . Llandudno was always one of those places I loved being sent to with work . The sea was glistening a sort of blue/grey colour . The windfarms out at sea spun round and round . There was an air of the place being busy even on this cold old October morning . The hotels were displaying no vacancies signs . Were they full ? Or were the proprietors taking a well earned rest this week before half term. We passed full Craig y Don , Sea View and the out of character Dunoon Hotel . Llandudno had a lot to please the holidaymakers and managed to keep itself filled with guests all year round . Holidaymakers here for the day like us . Holidaymakers who had arrived with the bus companies for a week based here in North Wales . We passed people sitting on benches enjoying the bracing air . There as a small museum . Perhaps we should highlight this one for another trip . Llandudno is but an hour away from us and worthy of another day out .

We never got on the Pier . That was another one for another day . The Big Wheel which was not that big was lit up. The neon lights even in daylight sparkled . Perhaps that was one for another trip.

Our first stop was a cafe for lunch . We arrived a little too early. One other table was occupied and we were invited to sit anywhere . We could have breakfast which would be served until 11.45 or wait until midday when the lunch menu would start . A few people drifted in as we ordered our usual coffees and a big breakfast plus a comforting beans on toast . The big breakfast included black pudding . Not a favourite of Glenns so it was pushed hastily onto my plate . I do love a black pudding and never eat them at home . So it felt a real treat to indulge in one today . We left the cafe and headed up to the tram stop. We had planned to go on the tram a few months ago but the station at the bottom of the Orme was closed for refurbishment /repair . This left a rather ardous walk up the steep hill to the Halfway Station where the trams changed over . We had never fancied the long walk uphill so put it off until today when I read that the lower station was indeed open again .

So that is how we found our way to the bottom station paying over our £18 or so for two return tickets on what turned up to be a very full tram. There were about four seats remaining and we chose two close to the doors by the driver . Glenn sat next to the elderly guy and I sat next to his wife . We passed a few pleasantries as you do about the weather, the tram , the journey to the top and how full the tram was . Crammed to the rafters . No standing allowed . It was on the 31st July 1902 that the first tram car moved from the Victoria Station named after the Victoria Hotel which once stood near the spot to the sound of God save the King. Today we were travelling on the only cable hauled tramway still operating on British public roads . The tram would run for another two weeks before being put to bed for the winter .

We set off at a leisurely pace . The gradient is steep on the first part of the track as it climbs up the street between the houses on each side . Traffic lights control the cars who have to stop for the tram . We knew that we had to disembark from our tram at the Halfway station where we would join another tram which would run the rest of the journey on its own section with its own right of way. It resembled the San Francisco cable cars but had a very different approach to running using a fixed cable which moved across revolving wheels . As we climbed higher at one point we had to stop at the red light . The driver opened her door and told us she had to wait for the van to come down and the tram employers would turn up with a magnet key which would change the lights and open up the light for her to carry on with the journey . She explained how the tram was being hauled up by a winch at the Halfway Station . We commented on what if .................what if the chain broke? We would hurtle backwards far faster than we were travelling uphill . Llandudno spread out below us as we climbed higher .

We continued chatting to our neighbours about the views and why they seemed so far from home . They were from Australia and on a five week tour to the UK both visiting relatives in South Wales and seeing our country from Skye to Cornwall and all points in between. They had visited York and Chester. Then they commented on my hat . "That badge - what is it?" Wrexham AFC I pronounced . The conversation then turned to the fact that they knew of the takeover of our club and our new owners and we were always on the news in Australia . Since March 2022 over a million have become followers of our club via TikTok, Twitter, Instagram and any other internet sources you can think of . We smiled and talked to them about the World Wide Reds .

Sadly our chat had to end as we rumbled into Halfway station . Time to leave our seats and walk down the long corridor where we could see the huge winding machines through the glass windows . And then it was on to the next tram for the last part of our journey to the top of the Orme . The tram filled up and off we set . The tramway was constructed in 1901 and opened logically in two stages . The lower part we had just travelled along in 1902 . The upper section would be completed by 1903. Coke fired boilers at the Halfway Station produced the power to run the winding gear and communication was via a telegraph system operated on overhead lines and trolley poles on the tram cars . We had looked at the trolley poles and pondered what they had been used for .Now we knew the answer. Seven cars originally ran on the route . Numbers 1 to 3 carried freight up the Orme . Freight included coffins for burial in the cemetery . Numbers 4 to 7 were used to ferry passengers up and down the Orme . All were named after local Welsh saints . The pretty blue and white and green and white trams still bore the numbers and the saints names . All in still in use and here and there we came to passing points on the line where a tram came down whilst we want round and continued upwards to the summit .

We read that the line received a million pounds of funding from the European Union together with a million from the Heritage Lottery Fund and matching funds from the owners which meant that the Halfway station could be modernised . I wonder if Brexiteers in Wales realised just how much funding came from Europe we wondered .

At this point we reached the top . The famous Great Orme goats descendents for a few goats given to Llandudno by Queen Victoria were grazing . During Covid they had ventured down into the town eating anything they found in gardens . The pests as they were seen now had migrated back up the Orme . The hotel on the top was doing a roaring trade and some braved the winds looking out to the wind farms at sea hoping for a glimpse of the Isle of Man. Sadly in the mist there was nothing to see . The church was St Tudno was a long way down and those without a return ticket chose to walk that way back . Perhaps another day we might see inside this little church . We bade a farewell to our new Antipodean friends and wished them well on the rest of their trip . A chance meeting , a chance conversation on a tram . That is what travel is all about . Even if this trip was more home than away.

We walked back to the station and boarded the tram that was waiting . Against it was full . A handful of seats which soon filled up. And then we were off trundling slowly back down to the Halfway Station past the old workings of the Bronze Age mines and the hillside scattered with stones setting out names. Ken , a cross picked up in stone on the hillside . We could not read most of them . We were too far away .

The gradients were as steep as 1 in 3.8 which works out at 26.15% in parts . The upper section on 10%. The views back down to the bay were stunning . Before long we were back in the town centre . Another one of those things on the wish list ticked off. Time for the drive home in the car still with no name AKA Clint .

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Comments

[Dancing Dave]

Trams this way
I have posted some of your pics in TB's 'Trains, trains & more trains' thread in the Photography Forum. Check 'em out.

[JenGog]

train photos
Thankyou Dave. I love a train and have just been looking at some of my old ones over the years . Thanks for the memories of riding on them . The Gornergrat in Switzerland was a fantastic one and we hunt out steam trains all over Europe and over here . Cant beat a good steam train .