Railways - steam

The Fairbourne Railway is a 12 1⁄4 inch (311 mm) gauge railway running for 2 miles (3.2 km) from the village of Fairbourne on the Mid-Wales coast, to the end of the peninsula at the Barmouth Ferry railway station. The railway has four steam locomotives and one of the four, 'Beddgelert', seen here returning to Fairbourne with four coaches, is one of them. All four steam locos are half sized replicas of previous narrow gauge engines. In the background, across the Mawddach estuary, is "The Cardigan Bay Express" hauled by 7819 Hinton Manor! A scan from my Agfachrome 35mm slide, showing the juxtaposition of two completely different trains.

Sir Haydn is the Talyllyn Railway's locomotive No. 3 and he had been invited to attend an exhibition at Waterloo Station in London. As he was not able to use the infrastructure to get there under his own steam he decided to go by train instead! The Talyllyn Railway is a 2 ft 3 in (686 mm) narrow-gauge preserved railway in Wales, run by volunteers and runs for 7.25 miles (11.67 km) from Tywyn on the Mid-Wales coast to Nant Gwernol, near the village of Abergynolwyn. The line was opened in 1866 to carry slate from the quarries at Bryn Eglwys to Tywyn, and was the first narrow gauge railway in Britain authorised by Act of Parliament to carry passengers using steam haulage. In 1951 it became the first railway in the world to be preserved as a heritage railway by volunteers. A scan from an Agfachrome slide, since sold.

...just before Ash in Hampshire 15th June 1963 A scan of a 35mm slide, by the late Trevor B. Owen from which copyright was recently released. 31625 is a Maunsell U class loco built at Ashford Works in 1929. It was withdrawn from service by British Railways at the beginning of 1964 and sold as scrap to Woodham's Brothers in south Wales, arriving at their scrapyard in June of that year.

...on the East Lancs Railway in 1995. This loco colloquially known as a 'crab' was built in 1927 and withdrawn from service by British Railways at the end of 1966. Almost twelve years later it was rescued from a scrapyard in south Wales and restored. HFF!