The plan was we needed to be absolutely nowhere near any track when there could be trains. Including an early morning engineering train coming to check the line before service and take supplies to halfway house cafe. So we wanted to set off not long after sunrise and be down the bottom and vanished crazy early -- so in theory this was going to be totally under the radar and nobody would see this, not even report on it. Zip down at high speed and tell nobody
But what I hadn't expected was a constant stream of people walking up and down the Llanberis path to summit and back at all times of day and night in "Summer" (about 5C and strongly blowing drizzle), there were people queuing for the summit at 03:00 in bad weather on a Sunday morning! unbelievable! I just had no idea how busy it could get in a Summer weekend, crowds of people walking down in first light who waved and shouted good morning to us as we went past, or shouted if we had a spare cart, one enthusiastic lady was shouting something about going on the back as we went past. So this is unfortunately not a well kept secret even before I posted the report.
I took a long time to get down as I was having real problems braking after I got below Clogwyn Station (that's where the line if open to train service and the rails are greased). So I got decent bits of speed on the upper section, but low speed then after. The very steep sections were a grim battle with braking, running at a very slow speed, it took me something like an hour - still great fun!
The less steep was more enjoyable than the steep bits, weirdly - there you could ride the track and not be in a battle for survival on the brink of losing control every second I massively enjoyed it though. I think bravery is one factor and shoe choice is another, I had 5.10 guides (which are awful, don't buy them) and these didn't work on the wheels, he had a knackered old pair of office shoes which had a heel with no grip or tread just smooth soft rubber - actually that turns out to be the perfect choice for foot-braking longboard wheels
Also it could be that in May (before the season is open) the rails might have rusted slightly over winter - all the speed limitation was braking issues at no point did I come close to danger from being flung off sideways"M" did better with braking due to a combination of better shoes and his cast iron test-icicles - he got a lot more speed especially in the lower sections not sure what his time was but it was much much faster than me. He has the GoPro footage, not sure when I can get it, but may be able to edit some short clips when I can into a 90 second "teaser" at some point
Not sure there'll be another time as this was too public to be able to ever repeat (and the carts may be re-purposed for another project already being floated! which may involve travel "excuse me sir, what is that in your luggage?"), but I reckon I could 1/2 or 1/3 my running time if I ever repeated it, now I know what to do and what *not* to do and how the track is and how to brake. Was the first ever run on a track, learning experience. I reckon 25 minutes is possible, but difficult as you have to jump up at points like passing places in stations unless you had actual train flanged wheels and all the points were set perfectly
