THERE has been plenty to cheer about at the Talyllyn Railway in recent weeks.

The railway’s Santa Specials proved to be a huge success with bookings over 60 per cent up on the previous year. Two extra trains had to be run to cope with the numbers who wished to travel, and young and old were treated to a memorable festive experience as they took their journey to ‘Plas Nadolig’ to meet the man in red.

After Christmas the railway’s traditional ‘mince pie’ specials also proved popular with passenger numbers well up on the previous year. In addition the railway’s Wharf café hosted a record number of Christmas parties in the run-up to the festive season.

All of this added to an excellent year which has seen passenger numbers increase by nearly four per cent during the year, with over 45,000 people making a journey on the line. This is the highest number of passengers the railway has seen for several years.

General manager Tracey Parkinson, who started work on the railway in May 2016, said: ‘These results are most encouraging coming as the result of some new marketing initiatives which we intend to develop in the coming years. The results for the Santa Specials were particularly encouraging, and we intend to run more of them in 2017."

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