The Snowdon Mountain Goat Close to Completion 

Over the last 2 weeks Garmendale Engineering Limited have worked extremely hard to get carriage 5 (the Snowdon Mountain Goat) at a point where it is close to completion.

Since our last visit 2 weeks ago, all of the paneling has been manufactured in house at Garmendale engineering. The technology used is a unique composite consisting of two exterior Glass Reinforced Plastic (GRP) sheets sandwiching an Omniboard inner section. This gives a touch and lightweight paneling to the carriages.

The Side Panels and Iroko woodwork installed onto the mountain goat.

All of the windows and window vents have been fitted to the carriage. In order to save on weight we have decided to use single glazed safety glass – this allows us to maximise the size of the window which would be restricted by a heavier double glazed pane. The doors have been glazed and fitted.

The roof for the carriage has been a particular challenge to Garmendale Engineering. As the carriages are unique to Snowdon Mountain Railway, the roof is a one off design. It is constructed in a single board which is an epic 11.5 meters in length. Similarly to the side panels, an inner GRP skin sits underneath an Omniboard inner, but unlike the panels there is an exterior aluminium panel which protects against hot ashes discarded by the steam locomotive.

The Mountain Goat near completion.

All of the exterior hardwood trim has been hand crafted and fitted by a joiner.  The wood used is Iroko which is a large hardwood tree from the west coast of tropical Africa. We chose this as it is the closest match to the bare wood on the original carriages from 1896. Iroko is low maintenance and is treated with a specialist hardwood coating that maintains the beautiful bare wood finish.

The final big job was to install the seats to the carriages which were bolted in place. Garmendale Engineering are now adding final touches to the carriage and it is expected to arrive onsite on the 15^th April. Once it has arrived onsite it will require in house set up and will go into commissioning. 

The installed seats