page_title: Snowdon Mountain Railway
section_title: Train formation
hierarchical_section_title: Snowdon Mountain Railway / Safety / Train formation
caption_attribution_description: Snowdon Mountain Railway No.12 climbing towards Rocky Valley Halt. The platform can be seen a short distance in front of the train. 19th July 2005 Photographer - A.M.Hurrell Camera - Fuji FinePix F10 Modified - Trimmed and file size reduced using Finepix Software
context_page_description: The Snowdon Mountain Railway is a narrow gauge rack and pinion mountain railway in Gwynedd, north-west Wales. It is a tourist railway that travels for 4.7 miles from Llanberis to the summit of Snowdon, the highest peak in Wales.
  The SMR is the only public rack and pinion railway in the United Kingdom, and after more than 100 years of operation it remains a popular tourist attraction, carrying more than 140,000 passengers annually. The line is owned and operated by Heritage Great Britain, operators of several other tourist attractions in the United Kingdom.
  The railway is operated in some of the harshest weather conditions in Britain, with services curtailed from reaching the summit in bad weather and remaining closed during the winter from November to mid-March. Single carriage trains are pushed up the mountain by either steam locomotives or diesel locomotives. It has also previously used diesel railcars as multiple units. The railway has two new hybrid locomotives on order, for introduction at the start of the 2020 season.
  The SMR was the inspiration for the fictional Culdee Fell Railway, appearing in the book Mountain Engines, part of The Railway Series written by Reverend W.
context_section_description: For safety, train formations consist of one locomotive pushing a single carriage up the mountain and leading it down again while the locomotive brakes allow a controlled descent. (On opening, the usual practice was to have a locomotive pushing two coaches; this was changed in 1923.) The carriage is not coupled to the locomotive, as gravity keeps the two in contact. The track is always uphill from the lower end to the top end - it is never even near level
  An electric cable is run between the locomotive and the carriage, which enables a buzzer to be used to signal between the driver and the guard. The cable is designed to pull free if the locomotive and carriage separate. Not being coupled prevents a carriage being dragged down the mountain if a locomotive derailed, as happened in the opening day accident.
  Couplings are used during shunting operations as the yard is on level ground (see photograph of No. 6 at Llanberis). It was originally intended that each steam locomotive push two carriages to the summit, but this has not been normal practice since 1914.
caption: A train approaches Rocky Valley Halt
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