Are we dreaming of a Christmas quite as white as the winter of 1947?

WE may all be dreaming of a white Christmas but maybe not one quite as white as the one in this picture.

Taken in March 1947, the picture shows an engine and locomotive brought to a standstill by snowdrifts on the line between Merthyr and Abergavenny following renewed blizzards.

Heavy snowfall in the winter of ’47 caused huge problems for the coal industry. There was no means of moving coal-filled wagons away from the pit heads and miners were unable to reach pits due to the drifts blocking all routes of transport.

The picture comes from the book ’Tywydd Mawr - Extreme Weather in Wales’ by Iestyn Hughes, a volume of spectacular photographs and paintings of extreme weather conditions, collated by Iestyn Hughes from different collections such as the National Library of Wales, Mirrorpix, the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Getty Images and many others. Every picture has Welsh and English captions.