A Good Start

Hello, welcome to my first blog about the Fairbourne Railway.

Introduction

The Fairbourne Railway is a 2 mile long seaside minature railway, located in Gwynedd, North Wales, UK. It is open during School holidays and most days from May to the end of September.

First built as a horse tramway in 1895, it has had several different incarnations, but now has a track gauge of 12¼ inches (311mm) and is operated by 4 half-sized narrow gauge style steam locomotives.

Employing 5 full time staff (plus seasonal catering staff) the line is also supported by a Preservation Society (FRPS) which is made up of volunteers and armchair supporters. The buildings, land and track have recently been gifted to a charity (NWCLR Ltd), an extremely generous gesture by the former owners. The operating company, Fairbourne Railway Ltd, ploughs all its earning back in to running and maintaining the railway.

The railway has a Gift Shop, two licenced Cafes (the Harbour Cafe is open only during Peak season) and the Rowen Centre which features a large G-Scale model railway and animals. There is a large, well equipped workshop to maintain the railway's fleet of locomotives and carriages located at Fairbourne Terminus. Full details of the line can be found on its official website http://www.fairbournerailway.com/

News

The Fairbourne Railway has got off to a good start for 2009 despite difficult trading conditions. As of 31st May, visitor numbers were up 17.6% on the previous year. Despite the recession, Gift Shop takings increased by 12.7%. The two Cafes takings have increased by 33% and 52.3% respectively, possibly helped by the Alcohol licence, which was granted in April.

The above figures are very promising but it is too early to say how the railway will do during throughout the 2009 season. There has been increased expenditure on publicity (170,000 leaflets printed) which have been delivered earlier directly to the distributors and increased advertising in local magazines, local guides and newspapers. We have also tried to send publicity to all camping sites which are enjoying healthy bookings this year.

The glorious weather (Wednesday excepted) over Whitsun week certainly helped us and the Harbour Cafe was kept open an additional two days because of the number of visitors who had decided to extend their stay. The "Little & Large" event over the holiday again proved popular with the visit of live steam models on the G-Scale railway, a steam launch, a 5 inch gauge railway, a full size steam roller and free rides behind Roger Melton's miniature traction engine. Possibly the highlight of the event was the first public steaming of "Russell" which had been out of service for the previous 4 years.

CJ