e start our journey from the tiny hamlet called the Chequer, from which the railway derives its name, part of the village of Bronington, near the border with England. Passing through the booking office of the quaint Rookery Cottage that is the station building, we emerge onto the platform to find our train already waiting. At the head of the two blue and white and one chocolate and cream liveried coaches, a large tank engine is sizzling patiently as it waits for the off. Further inspection reveals it to be "CHRISTINE", a Pearse 'Auric' class 0-4-0 loco, the main workhorse of the line and easily capable of handling our small train. After a brief chat with the driver, a pleasant fellow called George, who, it turns out, is also the line's civil engineer, we climb aboard the first coach in the train and make ourselves comfy.

It's not long before, with a gentle bump, we get on our way. We leave the station and rumble over the points that form the junction between the station and the goods yard. Once clear, the engine accelerates the train with no real fuss until we are rattling along the overgrown track at a steady pace. The scenery around us is lush and green, if a little hilly, rising on our left as we approach Mynydd Nellu and its power station. The power station is mercifully hidden from our view as we trundle through two short tunnels, cut through the side of the mountain, with the gentle noise of the engine echoing back to us off the tunnel walls and the smell of the smoke from its fire somehow reaching us despite the closed windows. Emerging from the second of the tunnels the engine's beat changes slightly, as we round a sharp left hand curve and begin to climb. All we can see through the right-hand window are greenery covered rocks but, on the opposite side, the mountain falls away to reveal the beauty of the Llyn Nellu valley, with the lake itself not far to our left. About halfway along the side of the lake, the driver closes the regulator and we glide to a halt opposite "The Old School Cafe". There is no platform here, (since this is a light railway there is no requirement to provide such luxuries!) but a few passengers disembark to take in the sights and get a mug of tea from the cafe.

After a short wait we are underway again, the engine working a little harder now against the gradient as we climb the side of the valley. At the head of the lake the valley turns left with the line following, still climbing. We cross a low bridge and it is from this point that we get the best view of the lake, with the mountain behind. The scenery begins to change as we climb, becoming more open, still green, but a little harder looking. The next station we reach is Penrhynllwyd Junction, not much further up the line. Why it should be called a junction is unclear from the map we have in our guidebook but, upon reading the text we learn that there used to be another line from here to a small slate mine. The mine is now closed and the track taken up so the station has been reduced to a passing loop. Our train terminates here as work further up the line means that there is no official passenger service. As "CHRISTINE" runs around her train, ready to return to Rookery Cottage station, in the Chequer, we leave our compartment and find ourselves a sheltered spot in which to wait. Some passengers also leave the train and begin the walk up to the village and we wave goodbye to those that stayed on the train for the return journey as it departs.

We watch the train make its way back down towards the distant Llyn Nellu and sheltering from the wind we tuck into our sandwiches and take a drink from our thermos. What are we waiting for? Well, George told us that the next train up the line is an empty slate wagon train and that he would ask the driver to take us the rest of the way up the line, to the Penrhynllwyd slate quarries that this line was built to serve.
After what seems like an age in the cold wind we see a small loco, in crimson lake like "CHRISTINE", puffing its way towards us with a string of empty slate wagons in tow. As the train nears we see that the engine is "THE DUCHESS", a small open cabbed 0-4-0 tank engine, of the 'Jane' class, built by I.P.Engineering. Upon reaching the station the driver draws his train to a halt with the engine next to the water tower and prepares to top up his loco's tanks. Seeing us approaching he beckons us to one of the slate wagons which has a couple of planks placed through the slats and lashed in place, to form seats. We clamber in, making ourselves as comfy as we can, and prepare for the off.

Leaving the station the line crosses the valley to the left by means of a bridge, at its narrowest point. The line then curves sharply to the right as it climbs steeply around the head of the valley and our little engine is made to work hard, despite only pulling empty wagons, as the gradient is as much as one in thirty in places. The wind carries the sound of the engine, together with its smoke, back towards us as we round the long curve and then plunge through an unlined rock tunnel to emerge back above Penrhynllwyd, having turned almost through three hundred and sixty degrees around the valley head. The scenery now is much bleaker, the result of many years of slate quarrying and, in the distance we can make out the vast scar on the landscape that is the great Penrhynllwyd quarry. To reach its goal the line must again cross the valley and also cross over that section of line upon which we have just travelled. It does this by means of a grand looking bridge, the largest on the line, and as the train draws nearer to journeys end the engine sounds much more relaxed as the line is now nearly level. At last we reach the terminus and we stumble out of our wagon, cold of limb and sooty of face and looking for somewhere warm before we begin to explore the quarry...