Snowdon Mountain Railway

What a shit show this privately owned but publicly funded major attraction is!

But they can’t answer their phone, they can’t respond to emails, they can’t maintain their infrastructure and they can’t open the summit cafe!

I nearly lost a booking of 40 Dutch visitors whose trip centred around the rail journey to the summit (now sadly only going to Clogwyn station) and who ‘booked’ by email months in advance and then phoned repeatedly with no response. I weighed in and if I had not threatened the management company and complained to every tourist body interested in the area, these visitors, who had been planning their trip since September 2022, would have been badly let down and likely I would have lost four days of guiding for three staff. In the end we needed to take a look at our itinerary and move around walks to be able to take the last seats at a time we did not want and on a day we did not want, all because Snowdon Mountain Railway is unable to manage bookings or to communicate in any way with clients.

But that’s not all. The summit cafe has not been open since 2020 and this year its delay in opening is due to poor track maintenance. Well, they’ve had three years to sort that out! And when on Snowdon a couple of weeks ago we came across the workers, 9 of them in total, all lying about and doing nothing and expressing their hope for rain so that they might be able to call off that day and head down the mountain. Oh, I wish we ran things as efficiently as the Germans! I asked these workers when the cafe would be open, stating that Snowdon Mountain Railway have asserted by mid June and they laughed, ‘you’ll be lucky if it’s mid July, mate!’

But that’s not all. That same day, after observing the workers not working on two separate occasions, half way down the mountain I came across a group of lost boys who had asked the same workers ‘which way to Llanberis’ and they were directed to Snowdon Ranger, a completely different descent. Once at the car park at the bottom, I found more, who were meant to descend to Pen y Pass and were also directed to Snowdon Ranger. I think the railway workers were cruelly and dangerously ‘having a laugh’ at these poor walkers’ expense.

And this shit show of an attraction wins awards and is very much highly promoted by government tourism bodies and well funded by the taxpayers purse.