The Departments

What each one does, and how you can join in

The booking offices issue tickets to passengers over the counters at the stations, and also issue pre-booked tickets for party groups and individuals. This department also organises special trains, such as photographic, birthday, wedding or other celebration trains. Volunteers can progress from issuing tickets for the FR / WHR to issuing tickets for UK and Continental rail travel. Skills required include money handling, dealing with customers face to face and over the telephone, and 'unflappability'!

Although often seen as only a minor part of the railways, Sales and Catering provide essential income to enable the railways to continue to exist. This is also the human face of the railways that customers see, and therefore provides a big opportunity to impress customers and to help passengers have a good experience on our railways. It is also a useful skill to include on your C.V.! The reward for the volunteer is seeing the enjoyment that others gain from your work. The railways have shops at each main station, catering at Porthmadog and Tan y Bwlch and a licensed bar at Porthmadog. Skills required include shelf-stocking, money handling, offering general advice, counter service, basic food preparation, money handling, waiting-on skills, buffet service on trains. People to help customers/passengers by giving information and assistance from the Ffestiniog Railway Society stand, will also be very welcome indeed.

• A day in the life of a buffet steward

This is the department that runs the trains, ensures safety at all times, provides train guards and ticket inspectors, looks after the stations, provides signal persons, checks tickets, prepares the carriages for use each day, provides crossing keepers, controls train movements over both railways. This is definitely a 'front line' job, with most posts offering many opportunities to meet and look after the travelling public. Some of the jobs require many weeks of training, and are not for everybody, but many are open to all comers, particularly those involving station and carriage care! Skills required include customer care, money handling, cleaning, and those with a safety requirement include specialised on-the-job training from qualified personnel.

• A day in the life of a trainee guard

The main objective is to get people to visit and travel on the railways. In a world where continental travel is very much the norm, we have to actively sell the railway as a product to the North Wales holidaymaker. This is done by the design, production and distribution of advertising materials, attending trade shows, assisting with media production, press releases, customer surveys, and maintaining the railways' website. The continuing evolution of the Internet is giving many new opportunities where volunteers' expertise is needed to exploit this potential to the full. Skills required include, computer word processing, mailshot preparation, representing the railways at trade events and shows, any other marketing skills.

Our workshops at Boston Lodge may be the oldest in the world continually in use since 1832! However, we need 21st century skills to help us maintain our wonderful fleets of locomotives and carriages both ancient and modern. The romance of driving a steam engine appeals to many people, but is only gained after much experience at the Works. The normal route is from cleaning locomotives to trainee firing and after a qualifying period, fireman. Then, for the chosen few, it is possible to go on to become a steam driver after stringent tests and medicals. Diesel drivers take a different route, again involving a training regime, a medical and examination.
However there are many other openings at the Works, including machine tool work, joinery and carpentry, carriage building and maintenance, welding, fabricating, painting, routine repair, maintenance and refurbishment, electrical skills, specialist draftsman skills, and many more! Many tasks require skilled people, but there are also plenty of openings for people who are prepared to work hard, get dirty and learn through on-the-job instruction.

• A day in the life of a loco fireman

This department is responsible for the maintenance and development of the buildings, signs, stone walls, gardens, etc., all of which give the Railways their high quality image. The extensive range of buildings round the railways require continual work to keep them in good order, and there are often new building projects of which the building of our own Hostel and Training Centre at Minffordd recently is a good example. Once again there is the opportunity to gain new skills, (often handy for DIY back at home