Bristol Group History

This page is for capturing items of history of Bristol Area Group of the Ffestiniog Railway Society.

Moelwyn Tunnel Portals

It was intended to use stone from the CWS building in Bristol for the arches. The basement window arch lintel stones were carefully measured and taken to Minffordd Yard and then Tunnel South. Pedr Jarvis says they lay around for ages - he thought that was a great pity. Somebody said they weren't the right size, but he never heard any detail and thought they had had been carefully measured beforehand. Tim Oakley was one of the measurers and transporters. Robert Shrives (in 2020) reckons the stones are still under ivy somewhere near the Coal Hole Road in Minffordd Yard. The stone arches erected in 2018 -2020 were purchased new and made to measure in Portugal. That is one of the things that sometimes happen on the FR - plans can change.

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  The old CWS Building, Broad Quay, Bristol.

Cross Country Trains Mess Room

When carpet tiles were needed for the new Minffordd Yard office in about 2010 Robert Shrives arranged for Bristol Group to meet the FR Co. van at the building opposite Templemeads Station where the Cross Country (XC) mess room had been. After we were done, the contractors were due to throw everything else in the skip, so XC said we could take what we wanted as well as the carpet tiles which were the main objective of the operation - but he is not sure they expected us to get the wall-mounted water boiler! There was a good response from Group members who loaded the van with everything that was potentially useful. A plod from the local constabluary wandered past the white van, which was rapidly being filled with all sorts of clobber by a ragtag assortment of suspicious men and parked on a double yellow line, without thinking to make any conversation. The boiler turned out to not like Porthmadog water so it only lasted a short time.

References

Friends of Ffestiniog & Welsh Highland Railways Facebook Post and comments on 6/9/20.