Chrisjo's train pix

The diesel engine and all its ancillary equipment is under the floor. The exhaust pipe goes from the underfloor engine to one end of the carriage, then up to roof level above the LH driver's window. There is one powered bogie and one trailer bogie.  The 153 class was made from the 2-car 155 class, by de-coupling the two cars and constructing a new cab at the inner end of each one.  This is a drawing of the 155....

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Thanks Dr Chris for that diagram. So each car would have to be filled up with diesel fuel at the filling station. That Cummins engine looks to be like a motor found in a truck

The new and the old meet at Blaenau Ffestiniog station in North Wales on 28th March this year. On the left is the train I arrived on from Llandudno Junction - Trafnidiaeth Cymru (Transport For Wales) 197008, and on the right is Ffestiniog Railway's Blanche, built in 1893, on the 'Quarryman' service from Blaenau to Porthmadog.

The 'mountain' on the left is actually a heap of slate waste from one of the many quarries in the area which at one time exported Welsh slate right across the world.

This day also saw the first commercial run of the Ffestiniog Railway's newest locomotive, 'James Spooner II' a brand-new Double Fairlie (think 'Mighty Mac'), completed in 2023.

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James Spooner II...brand new steamer? They are actually still making steamers???
Goes to show you how much I know....I didn't know that Mighty Mac was modeled after an actual engine. I always thought it was a made up character....Doh!
Absolutly love all 3 photos especially whats in the background, thanks for sharing Dr Chris 😊

James Spooner II...brand new steamer? They are actually still making steamers???

They are indeed. The Ffestiniog Railway has operated seven Double Fairlie 0-4-4-0T locomotives, built between 1869 and 2023. You can read all about them here.

These are two more of them, at Tan-y-Bwlch in June 2012. The maroon one is 'Merddin Emrys' the first locomotive to be built by the Festiniog Railway Company in its own workshops at Boston Lodge in 1879. The green one is 'Iarll Meirionnydd', completed in 1979, one hundred years later. Quite a successful design then.

In a recent post about slot-cars, Nigels showcased Lady Penelope's car from Thunderbirds (International Rescue), bringing to my mind a locomotive that lives at Carlisle, UK.

57307 has been on West Coast Main Line rescue duty since 2002, originally for Virgin Trains (who came up in another thread recently) and now with Avanti West Coast.  The '20 Years of Direct Rail Services' livery is getting a bit long in the tooth now, given that it occurred in 2015. I took these photos a couple of months ago.

   

   

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Is that a building behind Lady Penelope or a retaining wall holding back a mountain?

Very good question. It seems to be just a damn big wall. There's a carpark on the other side of it. I've just been trying to find out if it was ever a part of a building, but it seems to have been just a wall even in the earliest pictures that I've found.  I've asked the question on https://www.railforums.co.uk/

Edit: And the answer is that the station roof used to be much more extensive than it is now, the wall supported it along one side. It was removed in about 1955. This is what the station looked like in 1928:



And here's an interactive map: Side by side georeferenced maps viewer - Map images - National Library of Scotland

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Wow...odd that they would just leave it up by itself like that without any bracing especially because its so old. Thanks for the research Dr Chris 😊

Chrisjo I really like the photo of the train and switches at the top of this page.  Great shot!