Heritage route
Vale of Rheidol Railway
Aberystwyth → Devil’s Bridge · Wales
Vale of Rheidol Railway in pictures
Photographs by their authors, hosted on Wikimedia Commons · tap through for the licence
- Distance
- 19 km
- Fastest time
- 1 h
- Average speed
- 19 km/h
- Top speed
- 24 km/h
- Operator
- Vale of Rheidol Railway
- Train
- Narrow-gauge steam
- Countries
- Wales
- In service since
- 1902
Figures are published values, not live data · corrections log
Narrow-gauge steam grinding 200 m uphill from the sea at Aberystwyth to the wooded gorge of Devil’s Bridge: the last steam line British Rail ever ran.
How this line was checked
- Line drawn from OpenStreetMap relation 163545 — the same nodes OpenStreetMap holds for this railway, thinned to within under 25 m of them
- Checked against OpenStreetMap: the whole line lies on real track, a median 4 m from it
- The operator publishes this line's timetable: Vale of Rheidol Railway — a place to look it up, not a check of our drawing
- Wikipedia has an article for this line
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Theroux’s Old Patagonian Express: 750 mm gauge, 1922 steam locomotives and wood-stove-heated wooden coaches across the steppe.
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A retired JR alignment above the Hozugawa rapids: twenty-five slow minutes of maples and gorge that the modern main line skips through tunnels.
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Restored D51 498 “Degoichi” and C61 20 haul retro coaches up the Joetsu Line on weekends: steam echoing off the Tone gorge under Tanigawa’s wall.
Wikipedia (JA) ↗
More train routes in United Kingdom · Wales.