Passing Place On The Upper Section, Great Orme Tramway

A Memory of Llandudno.

This is a photograph of two tramcars, Nos 6 & 7, at the passing loop above the Great Orme Mines. They are painted in the Dark Ochre livery which was only used for a few years after the upper line's opening in 1903. The haulage cables are clearly visible, these being of seven eigths of an inch diameter. They roll above ground on 12 inch sheaves and are guided by 'top hat' profiled pulleys. Every pulley requires greased lubrication on a daily basis, this being a backbreakingly unpleasant job. Without this, the cables would wear out quickly and would literally scream in protest! One can also see the two trolley poles mounted on each roof, these being used singly for signalling purposes. It was at this spot that a 'washout' of the track ballast took place in the late 1990s. This caused the upper section to be temporarily closed and required reballasting and new pointwork equipment was installed. A safety camera was found to be necessary, there having been several attempts to tamper with safery equipment here. 100 feet from here the tramway passes through a low cutting in the hillside. It was here that one of the drivers - we'll call him Bill - was driving No 7 through morning mist in 1993 when a mountain goat jumped from the embankment onto the front platform of his tram!  Bill was butted almost off the platform and only just kept his grip on the handrail. The goat wasn't very happy with his perch and jumped off. Now, all of this tripped the safety switch causing the two trams on the upper section to stop suddenly, throwing Bill off the platform alltogether. When he radioed to the winding house what had happened, this brought forth peals of unsympathetic laughter in response and, for several years after, his colleagues warned new aquaintances of Bill's fatal attraction to the hillside goats!