Meillionen
From Festipedia, hosted by the FR Heritage Group
| Meillionen | |
 | |
|---|---|
| Upnor Castle stopping at Meillionen | |
| Previous Station | Rhyd-Ddu |
| Status | Under Construction |
| Next Location | Beddgelert |
| Next Station | Beddgelert |
| Latitude | 53:01:04.68N |
| Longitude | 04:07:17.64W |
| Grid Reference | SH578488 |
| Harbour Station | |
OSGrid:SH578488 Latt / Long :53.01799 / -4.12117
Meillionen Forest Campsite, known as Beddgelert Forest Halt prior to construction, is a new halt on the reconstructed Welsh Highland Railway/Rheilffordd Eryri. As of May, 2007, the platform is accessed through the Beddgelert Forest Campsite. It has been laid with tarmac, complete with a concrete base for the waiting shelter. It is scheduled to become active, once the service between Rhyd Ddu and Beddgelert commences in April 2009.
The station serves the popular Beddgelert Forest Campsite, run by the Forestry Commission in association with The Camping and Caravanning Club. The station will have a waiting shelter, with the possibility of ticket sales, and will offer an alternative to going to Caernarfon or Porthmadog by car or the perilous walk to Beddgelert along the main road.
Beyond the halt, the line skirts a woodland and on the left you can see, descending below the line, the cutting and earthworks of the never-completed Portmadoc Beddgelert and South Snowdon Railway of 1904-08. This was to have been worked by trams on gradient of 1 in 28; but when the line was finally completed in 1922-23, steam haulage was used and as steam engines are not very good at steep gradients, the gradient was eased to 1 in 40 by extending the railway round the Cwm Cloch or Lower S-Bend. Before you enter the S-bend, you can see on the left the other two curves of the S below you. The top bend runs through Cwtting Mawr, a gloomy and rather wet gash in the landscape, some forty feet deep in the middle. It is quicker to walk down the Cwm Cloch lane from the top to the bottom crossing than to travel by train, but again, the views by rail are rather spectacular. At the bottom of the S-bend, with the PB&SSR earthworks coming in on your left, you enter Beddgelert Station.