The various heritage railways across the country provide valuable tourist attractions, boosting local economies and preserving historic rolling stock, track, and signalling technologies. It’s a challenging industry, exemplified by the current difficulty of obtaining coal, along with having to tackle the same statutory requirements for competency, safety, and assurance, together with commercial and obsolescence challenges, as main line and metro railways.
Asset management and maintenance of the heritage assets requires considerable ingenuity and innovation. This was demonstrated during a visit to the 1 foot 11 ½ inch -gauge Ffestiniog and Welsh Highland Railways (FfWHR), in North Wales by the IRSE over two days in May.
The Heritage Alliance (HA) says the UK heritage rail sector encompasses more than 211 operational railways, running trains over nearly 600 miles of track and operating between some 460 stations. This attracts up to 13 million visitors, with 18.6 million passenger journeys covering 130 million passenger miles.
HA also says that heritage rail creates jobs and supports local and regional supply economies, employing 4,000 staff, 22,000 volunteers, and provides £600 million in economic value. Heritage rail provides a valuable training ground for employment on the main line network or other industries, and, for older volunteers, a sense of achievement and the health benefits of steady exercise and social interaction.
Heritage rail preserves and engages audiences with ‘live’ displays and keeps assets going so that they don’t become static museum displays. This brings many advantages and opportunities for skills and community building, audience engagement and creativity.
Ffestiniog and Welsh Highland Railways
The Ffestiniog Railway (FR) is the world’s oldest narrow-gauge railway with almost 200 years of history, providing a 13.5-mile journey from the harbour station in Porthmadog to the slate-quarrying town of Blaenau Ffestiniog. The trains climb over 700 feet from sea level into the mountains through pleasant pastures and magnificent forests, past lakes and waterfalls, round tight bends (including a complete spiral), while tunnelling through or clinging to the side of a mountain. The railway’s legal name is ‘Festiniog Railway’ with a single ‘F’ due to a spelling mistake made in 1832 when the act of parliament to build the railway was made. The line is also famous for its 28 tonnes articulated Double Fairlie steam locomotives.

The line closed to passengers in 1939 and to goods in 1947. Restoration began in 1954, with the first public passenger train from Porthmadog to Boston Lodge in July 1955. The line was then restored in stages with completion to Blaenau Ffestiniog in 2102.
The Welsh Highland Railway (WHR), Rheilffordd Eryri, is the UK’s longest heritage railway and runs for 25 miles from Porthmadog Harbour station, through the Aberglaslyn Pass, past the village of Beddgelert, the foot of Snowdon Mountain (Yr Wyddfa), and on to Caernarfon via Dinas. Snowdon has an elevation of 1,085 metres above sea level, making it both the highest mountain in Wales, and the highest in the British Isles south of the Scottish Highlands. The line uses mainly 62-tonne 2-6-2+2-6-2T articulated NGG16 Garratt steam locomotives obtained from South Africa.
Closing to passengers in 1936 and to goods in 1937, the first section from Caernarfon to Dinas was reopened and operated by the FR in 1997, using the old London North Western Railway standard gauge route. Waunfawr was reached in 2000 and Rhyd Ddu in 2003. The line was extended to Hafod y Llyn in 2009 and Pont Croesor in 2010, and passenger services linking Caernarfon to Porthmadog started in 2011.
ETCS narrow gauge crossing
Being single line railways, both the FR and WHR use token working with passing loops. Porthmadog Harbour station does have a signal box, signals and point machines, and both lines feature level crossings, including Cae Pawb, where the WHR crosses the Network Rail Cambrian Coast line using a flat crossing.
Cae Pawb is on the Network Rail ETCS Harlech to Porthmadog signalling section, which is controlled from Machynlleth Control Centre. Standard gauge trains are protected by signals and wide-to-gauge trap points on the WHR line, which are interlocked with the standard gauge ETCS signalling. The crossing is activated locally, with ETCS providing authority for the WHR trains to cross, provided the standard gauge section is clear.
With its lower line speed, it could be considered that both lines are safer than ‘main’ line railways and the safety requirements could be relaxed. This is certainly not the case and all heritage railways have a duty of care to workers, passengers, and the public. They must comply with both civil and criminal health and safety law, which means appropriate controls must be in place to minimise the risks to health and safety of those affected by the activities of the railway.
For example, while both the FR and WHR are excluded from the full scope of the mainline railway requirements of Railways and Other Guided Transport Systems (Safety) Regulations 2006 (ROGS) by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR), every railway is expected to have a Safety Management System (SMS). The ORR has published guidance for minor and heritage railways to help them interpret and apply the SMS requirements to their railways.
Porthmadog Harbour station signalling
The signal box at Porthmadog Harbour station has a 12 lever Westinghouse Signals Style ‘L’ miniature lever-frame. This is a small portion of the old 155 lever Darlington South frame, which was commissioned at Porthmadog as part of the station remodelling in March 2014. The signalling consists of seven track-circuits and Mackenzie and Holland inspired semaphore signals, with the Trident Signal the largest. The semaphore signals are complemented by ground-level colour light shunting signals.
The box controls the movements around the station and monitors the level crossing over the Britannia Bridge for the WHR via CCTV. The crossing is activated by the Porthmadog-Pont Croesor token being inserted into a key switch in advance of the crossing. In the Up (Porthmadog) direction, activation has to be accepted by Porthmadog signal box, with the operation of the level crossing cancelled by the signal box.
Next to the signal box is one of the point machines developed for narrow gauge railways by Signal Apsects Ltd. Operation of the throw is achieved using a sliding cam, with an Acme screw converting rotary to linear motion, and a 24 Volt DC motor turning the screw via reduction gears. Over-current sensing isolates the motor if a foreign object jams the points and the screw assembly is fitted with limit switches with separate electrical detection of the locks.

Locking normal and reverse lock dogs integral with the linear cam plate provide the locking. Two versions are available with direct locking of the throw bar for smaller track gauges (15-inch and 24-inch gauges) or separate throw and lock rods for larger gauges. A heavy steel bedplate carries a fabricated steel box chassis. This is provided with a stainless-steel weather tight cover. Five pairs of fixing holes allow the machine to be bolted to sleepers of wildly varying spacing.
The throw bar is double ended, allowing the machine to be used on right- or left-handed points. A second drive may be attached to work a back drive or trap points and there is also a facility to allow the machine to be manually driven using a crank handle. Power to the motor is cut when the crank handle is inserted. The point and lock machine has integral electrical detection of the locks, and a separate switch rail detector can be added by using a common alignment plate, such as the BR998 detector used on main line railways.
The point machine at Porthmadog is right next to the sea and is believed to have operated for many years with no failures. Rail Engineer trusts it has not jeopardised this excellent availability record by publishing this article!
3D-printed ETS plugboard
Since the early restoration days of the FR, a Miniature Webb & Thompson Electric Token Staff (ETS) instrument, configuration F, has been used to obtain access to the Minffordd – Porthmadog section of the main line. This was the most intensively used instrument on the railway and was needed for each arrival and departure of locomotives from the works at Boston Lodge.
Extensive redevelopment has taken place at Boston Lodge, which resulted in a change to the way that locomotive crews operate. Due to the location of the ground frame, crews were required to walk across the yard to obtain the token from the Lobby before heading back across the yard to operate the ground frame.
The solution was to relocate the existing ETS instrument, allowing locomotive crews to collect their train, obtain a token, then operate the ground frame. However, the relocation of the ETS instrument meant that works staff had to walk across the yard to obtain the section token for road vehicles to gain access to deliver materials.
So, a new miniature ETS intermediate instrument was constructed, using parts from spare machines, with the ETS relocated in the Lobby. A major issue was not having the correct F configuring drum or staff guard needed for the new instrument. A, B, and C drums were available and it was found that a C drum could be converted to an F by removing one of the discs and creating a new disk to insert in its place.
An existing casing for the new instrument was sand blasted and repainted in signal red with dark admiralty grey coding – the colour for the Minffordd – Porthmadog section. The first mechanical tests were successful, but the next challenge and by far the hardest was to design and build the plugboard, which is the electrical interface required for the operation of the machine.
The existing plugboard had been made from slate and used cloth-covered wires. The wires were in need of replacement and a plugboard was needed, specifically for intermediate operation. The solution was to design and manufacture a new plugboard using 3D-printing and the original slate plugboard as a template.
It took 65 hours to print the plugboard due to its complexity. After the 3D printing was complete, a wiring diagram was created that allowed this plugboard to operate as an intermediate instrument. This also provided the ability to create new plugboards for all types of miniature ETS instruments on the railway.
The plugboard was subject to the rigours of testing and after touching up the paint and polishing the brass work it was installed in the Lobby. Previously, all sections with an intermediate instrument required a three-way test. With the addition of a fourth machine in the Minffordd – Porthmadog section a four-way test was needed, which required modifications to the existing testing regime.
The FR also has an involvement with supporting the Network Rail telecoms network and ETCS role out. A Network Rail fibre cable runs from Minffordd to Blaenau Ffestiniog over the FR route and provides a telecoms diverse communication link from the North Wales line to the Central Wales line.
Welsh Highland Railways signalling
Being a single line with passing loops, the signalling for the WHR like the FR is based on centralised dispatcher control and token working. To enter any section of line the train crew must obtain permission from the control and a relevant token from the start of the section. The WHR also uses a staff and ticket system so trains can either be issued with the section token, or a numbered ticket with the token following in the last train of the group. Tickets allow multiple trains to follow, one-at-a-time through a section in one direction.
The signals / warning boards are also provided by Signal Aspects Ltd, with the design based on the old FR disc signals with a large red circle with a ring of black dots in order to resemble FR discs. Signals which use lights (LEDs) to give a proceed indication (home signals) have the lights positioned in place of the top and bottom-most dots. The appearance of these signals has led to them being called ‘ladybird’ signals. Signal Aspects Ltd also provide solid state treadles (inductive sensors) for the FfWHR. These are clamped to the rail and detect the passage of train wheel flanges and for example are used to activate level crossing strike in.

At some stations an additional shunt token is used (such as for locomotive run round). These are provided at Dinas, Rhyd Ddu, Beddgelert, and at Pont Croesor. Withdrawing the token causes two yellow lights to go out on a red warning board, preventing other trains from entering the station. The majority of the points at passing loops are operated automatically using the WHR-developed hydraulic Train Operated Trailable Points (TOTP) system.
The Caernarfon to Dinas section of the WHR was originally opened for traffic over just three miles using One Engine in Steam working (OES). As the line expanded, token / ticket working replaced OES, but this proved to be inflexible with the need to move tokens around by road.
When the line was reopened there was no budget for a cable route. A radio solution was considered with six radio base station masts to cover the route. The base stations would have been linked using private wires leased from BT at a cost of £30,000 per year, and planning consent would probably have prevented the masts from being provided.
This led to the idea of using public broadband internet to link ETS machines provided by Iarnród Éireann and the development of a system known as MicroETS. Three IRSE Fellows: Richard Stokes, Roger Short, and Philip Wiltshire (past president) agreed to become Independent Competent Persons (ICPs) and assess the safety of the system.
MicroETS
The ETS machines contain a two-pole changeover switch (commutator) that changes over each time a token is inserted, or extracted from, the machine. If the ETS machines at either end of a single line section are the same polarity, this is ‘Line Clear’, but if they are different it means ‘Line Blocked’. In conventional ETS, lineside wires are used to carry the polarity of the connection between ETS machines. With MicroETS, a system of double-encrypted broadband internet IP messages is used to acquire the remote polarity enabling the comparison at the local end. This is carried out in a unit called the outstation and the outstations are kept out of sight, so they do not detract from the heritage feel of the ETS machines.
A dedicated message protocol running on TCP/IP is used to form a three-out-of-three voting system. If all three channel cards decide the remote and local polarities are the same, the Line Clear lamp will illuminate and a BR960 relay will pick, making a token available for 20 seconds. The local polarity is sampled every 10ms and if a change occurs the BR960 relay is dropped, relocking the ETS machine.
Innovation and creative engineering
Supported by 3D printing, broadband IP communications, LED ‘ladybird’ signals, hydraulic trailable points, fibre optic cables, and with a crossing featuring ETCS, there is much innovative and creative engineering involved in the FfWHR’s signalling and telecoms, and everyone involved must be congratulated.
The Minor Railways Section of the IRSE was formed in March 2009 and aims to support, assist, and provide guidance, and to learn from those involved in the minor railway and heritage S&T community. This includes the purchase, preservation, restoration, installation, maintenance, and operation of all aspects of S&T equipment, installations, and buildings world-wide.
The section shares information and gives guidance on items such as: safety, legal requirements, industry information, technical processes and procedures, compliance, and competence for minor railways.
Details can be found on the MRS pages of the IRSE web site.
Image credit: Paul Darlington