Press Release - Talyllyn Railway Prepares For A Grand Finale

Final preparations are underway for our last gala of our 150th Anniversary celebrations which is to be held between Friday 1 July and Sunday 3 July 2016.


Called ‘The Grand Finale’ it will celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Talyllyn’s locomotive, Dolgoch, which in May 1951 became the first locomotive in the world to pull a passenger train on a preserved railway.

Both Dolgoch and the first locomotive delivered to the railway Talyllyn, which celebrated its 150th anniversary in September 2014, were built by the locomotive builder Fletcher, Jennings and Co. based at the Lowca works near Whitehaven in Cumbria. Therefore to celebrate the occasion all five of the surviving Fletcher, Jennings locomotives based in the UK are being brought together for the first time ever.

They include Captain Baxter, currently based at the Bluebell Railway in East Sussex, which will become the first standard gauge locomotive to operate on Talyllyn Railway property. It will be in steam on a short length of track in Tywyn Wharf yard offering footplate rides in return for a donation.

Also present, but not in steam, will be Townsend Hook, currently based at the Amberley Heritage Centre in West Sussex, and William Finlay which has recently been acquired by the Narrow Gauge Railway Museum Trust for display in their museum at Tywyn Wharf station. Both of these locomotives were built to the unusual gauge of 3 ft 2¼ in and with Captain Baxter originally operated at a Limestone quarry at Bletchworth in Surrey.

To mark the historic bringing together of these locomotives a special booklet has been produced - "The Lowca Legacy". Written by Anthony Coulls, a senior curator at the National Railway Museum in York and Shildon, this tells the story of the works at Lowca, as well as those of the nine surviving Fletcher, Jennings locomotives around the world. Priced at £3 all profits will go to the Narrow Gauge Railway Museum’s William Finlay Appeal.

During the weekend special trains will be run. These will include a Heritage Train on the Friday evening hauled by Dolgoch, which will take passengers on an historical tour of the railway stopping at various places of interest. Leading the tour will be Ian Drummond, author of the recently published book on the history of the Talyllyn "Rails Along The Fathew".

On the Saturday evening there will be a train hauled by all five of the Talyllyn’s current operating fleet of steam locomotives between Tywyn Wharf and Pendre stations. Later the same evening a night photoshoot will take place at Tywyn Wharf, which will include a brief firework display at approx. 10 pm.

Over the Saturday and Sunday the railway’s annual Garden Railway Gala will also be held which attracts visitors from all over the country. There will also be a beer festival and the café at Tywyn Wharf will be open until 9 pm on both the Friday and Saturday for meals.

A spokesperson for the railway said:

“After the success of last year’s galas we wanted to finish off our 150th Anniversary celebrations in style, and to bring together these iconic locomotives for the first time seemed the ideal way to do this. This is truly a ‘once in a lifetime’ gathering and is not to be missed.”

More information about the Grand Finale can be found on our website - http://talyllyn.co.uk/talyllyn-150-grand-finale


For further information about this press release please e-mail: pressoffice [at] talyllyn [dot] co [dot] uk or phone 01654 710472.

Photo by Barbara Fuller