Brecon Mountain Railway — Attraction in Pant

A Brilliant, Mind-blowing, Magnificent, Picturesque, Wonderful, Spectacular, Adventurous, Sensational 5 mile-long 1.5 Hours heritage railway trip with the Brecon Mountain ⛰ Railway 🛤! An exciting adventurous historic rail journey for all of all ages and abilities! Both the Pant and Pontsticill Railway Stations are fully accessible. There is special carriage designed to carry manual wheelchairs with ramped access! Sadly no other type of wheelchairs or mobility scooters are allowed! 😔

The Brecon Mountain Railway, BMR in short, is undoubtedly a brilliant heritage railway traversed the mountainous Brecon Beacons National Park! The 100+ year old historic steam locomotive 🚂 goes through the Brecon Beacons from The Pant Railway Station at 1134 Feet (346m) above sea level climbing to the summit of the Torpantau at 1,313 feet (400 m) above sea level! Along the railway track, rolling hills & high mountains ⛰ in one side and picturesque Pontsticill Reservoir & Taf Fechan Forest in the opposite! Valley of diverse landscape full of trees of various kinds and visitors & cyclists along the track keep you very busy exploring and discovering the magnificent Brecon Beacons National Park. On the right towering mountain throughout and on the left downwards valley give you a shiver at your spine with excitement!

The BMR Carriages 🚃 are very nice, decorative and clean reflecting the historic railway 🛤 installed in 1863! Carriages are designed with all weather-friendly glass windows on both sides enabling everyone seating on the aisle or window seats to observe and immerse into the natural beauty of the Brecon Beacons National Park! One of the key attractions is the balcony of the carriage where you are allowed to go and observe the landscape without the glass window! It is an amazing experience with high winds blowing you away, sounds & whistle of the steam engine and the smoke - it feels like you are flying through an open tunnel of a valley! Surprisingly, children with an adult are allowed on the balcony too! Be assured, waist-height safety rails keep you safe in the balcony! One criticism of the carriages is the space between the face-to-face seats are very restricted for four adults! Dogs are welcome!

The staff are always welcoming and very friendly throughout - always ready to help! Pre booking is highly recommended because of the huge popularity of this heritage steam engine railway with local, national and international visitors! You have the option of a return journey at the same time. Alternatively, you have the option of one way journey to Pontsticill or Torpantau and explore the surrounding forest, lake, ponds, mountains, hills and fresh air! And you can also book a return journey at a later time except the last train of the day!

One missing link is that there isn't any live commentary about the area except few pointers! It would be a real value to the heritage journey as BMR promotes the BMR as heritage journey! To be honest it is a disservice to the historic railway and steam locomotives!

There are three Railway 🛤 Stations 🚉 along the route - The Pant, Pontsticill, (passing through Dol-y-Gaer - closed for access), and Torpantau. The Pant Station is the hub of the Brecon Mountain Railway and the only access point to the BMR with a Gift Shop, Cafe, Information Point, Miniature BMR Track with operational train, Ticket Hall, Accessible Toilets ♿ 🚽 🚻 and a large car park for visitors. Ticket Hall is not fit for purpose as it is very small and only counter for a large number of passengers. There are plenty of BMR Staff available at the platform and train, but there isn't none at all at the ticket hall other than the staff at the counter cubicle. The BMR management must need to rethink and find more effective & efficient alternative options for better queue/crowd management, in particular, for the vulnerable and mobility...

It was our first time visiting for the Santa Specials, and it was a really lovely Christmas activity enjoyed by all the family. The fact that there’s assigned seating on the carriages make it so much more easy to onboard, and to relax and enjoy the train ride. The team and staff behind it are incredible - they put everything into running the event, and even though there’s a queue for Santa, it’s relatively quick and you have mince pies and mulled wine (or squash and chocolate for the children) to keep you occupied as you wait. And once you’ve seen Santa, it’s nice that you have the option to get face painting or glitter tattoo’s (at additional cost), to pass the time, as you wait for everyone to board the train for the return journey home. The highlight of our trip for the whole party was the riding of the steam train itself and also getting to watch it maneuvre - not to mention the beautiful views as we rode along.

Unfortunately the whole day out was massively marred by the abrupt and rude behaviour from the person directing the car park, who spoke to us in a shocking manner. We asked him where he’d like us to park and he muttered something passively aggressively about how we’d passed it now. Called my partner back, even though it was extremely windy, to re-park despite waiting for us all to park up, get out and walk nearly up to the doors. Blamed us for parking wrong because another customer had dared to follow us in a car into the car park (?!?) and was just very unpleasant to deal with. As we came for a special Birthday surprise it actually ruined the start to the day, and upset the children - because the individual was so blatantly rude and the manner in which he called my partner back.

Would strongly recommend replacing this member of staff, as it was a stark contrast to everyone else working there, who clearly made a massive effort to make all visitors feel welcome. He clearly was in a foul mood, which is unfortunate for him, but absolutely no reason to take it out on customers. Would be 5 star if it wasn’t for this person, and will be one of the main reasons we aren’t keen to return again next year, despite...

£25 per ticket I think is too unreasonable. The seats in carriage E - you have to turn completely round in order to see the view which is very uncomfortable for such a long period of time and I think it’s unfair that you can’t choose whether to sit in the normal seats or the first carriage which are two totally different experiences and should be charged differently.

I think if I were sat in a different carriage I would’ve possibly had a much better experience.

The view is also not that great unfortunately. I think it’s too high a price for what is offered.

The cafe that you have to stop at for 1/2 hour is dull and cannot accommodate the amount of visitors on the train.

It also states that it is dog friendly, I find this is not the case as it’s extremely loud and can very spook a dog or damage its hearing.

I couldn’t ask to move because the train was fully booked and there were three of us.

Me and my family were so disappointed at the seats we were given and there was nothing we or you could do about it because you had fully booked the train.

I’m disappointed at the response and I think you need to be more understanding it’s not a hateful review it’s just it’s not what was advertised and I was disappointed as I was really looking forward to seeing the view but because I have a back condition I couldn’t turn around for more than 5 mins.

I booked this because I thought it would be accessible but because it’s not the seat that I thought it would be I couldn’t see.

The people in my carriage got fed up of having to turn completely around the whole way and so most of us ended up just looking...