![]() It was here in the early 1950s that author Tom Rolt saw the potential in great scenery and industrial heritage. A few miles down the coast at Tywyn is another beauty: the Talyllyn, also a top 10 entry. The track descends from the old slate quarries of Blaenau Ffestiniog to Porthmadog, where it meets another top-scoring line, the Welsh Highland, coming in from Caernarfon. “Part of that service is telling the story of the landscape, particularly the slate mining. “It’s very gratifying,” says Paul Lewin, general manager who started out as a teenage volunteer 43 years ago. While all the contenders scored highly on scenery, the North Wales line edged out the competition with its superior customer service. Yet all came second to the Ffestiniog, a former industrial line that was hauled from oblivion by teams of volunteers over three decades. The result is a star-studded array of Europe’s finest, including Switzerland’s spectacular Glacier Express and Norway’s vertiginous Flam Railway, which climbs 867 metres from fjord to mountaintop on one of the steepest standard-gauge tracks ever constructed. The survey sampled the opinions of Which? members on aspects of Europe’s most picturesque lines, from views to comfort, cleanliness and value for money. ![]() “I think we could have filled the entire top 10,” he says. It comes as no surprise to him that, according to a new survey by consumer body Which?, Wales is home to three of the 10 most scenic railway lines in Europe. “It’s a stunning panorama,” says local resident David Jones, “The best possible start or finish to any railway journey.” Jones is chair of Great Little Trains of Wales, a group that promotes a dozen heritage lines around the country. The smartly painted locomotive, Merddin Emrys, built in 1879, puffs towards the undisputed European capital of scenic railway journeys: Porthmadog. The train steams across the Cob embankment: on the right are the peaks of Snowdonia and on the left glitter the waters of Tremadoc bay.
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