Welshpool and Llanfair Light Railway

More good news from WLLR: it's been reported that Sierra Leone Railway No. 85 will be restored at Aberystwyth, with a planned return to steam in 2025. This is being generously funded by Friends of the Sierra Leone National Railway Museum.

Sent from my Pixel 3a using Tapatalk

 

A bit more (unofficial) good loco news here.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/tanllan/51555698357/

 

The last train for today departs Castle Caereinion after a sudden downpour.........




Cheerz,

Alan

 

Two pictures down from the scrummy looking cake .. (no sign-in needed)

https://m.facebook.com/WelshpoolSteamRailway/?__tn__=C-R

There's a very tantalising greeting from a sister (cryptic, eh?). Having a bit of a dig around, I think said sister lives at the Steyr Valley Railway.

 

Another bit of unexpected loco news, a huge red diesel!

taken from Facebook:

We are pleased to announce that there are plans to supplement our, somewhat tired and ageing, diesel fleet.

You can read more here https://fifteenflatout.files.wordpress.com/2022/06/2206earlspecial.pdf

And watch a video produced by the Alishan Forest Railway here

 

Is this not a prime example of big dieselitis?

 

1 in 30 gradient with check railed reverse curves. Standard gauge in UK has it relatively easy.

 

Well, since Ilfrafombe and Folkestone Harbour closed, at any rate (I know .... but trains on those two tended to be just a tad heavier!) .

Great news for the W&L. For Bob's sake, just don't paint it green!

 

I see that the newly restored Premier will be visiting from Sittingbourne for the September gala. That means the 3 steam locos running will be 122, 120 and 117 years old.

 

Won’t 699 be ready by then? Whoever decided to get rid of the Resita in 2016 and instead “quickly overhaul” 699 to fill the gap must have been extremely optimistic!

 

It'll be interesting to learn how Premier gets on with Golfa Bank. The W&L has a way of sorting the sheep from the goats ..... and I've noticed that locos which survive the test have a habit of returning home rather better tuned than when the left.

 

They've said it'll probably be used on Llanfair to Cyfronydd shuttles over the gala sadly.

Regarding the Resita, one of the comments I heard was they were fed up of trying to engineer the Romanian out of it! It seems to be working fine back home though.

 

A small fortune was spent trying to make it a useful loco. Boiler repairs, motion overhaul, new exhaust, new cab and so on. It repayed this investment by snapping one of the crank webs off. The W&L relies quite heavily of volunteers for it's engineering work. It isn't sustainable to for them to rebuild a Romanian engine every season. The loco was supposed to run for 10 years so they could get on with something else. Instead it just gobbled up resources.

It's not the only bad decision that has led to a shortage of locos, but it certainly didn't help.
Tim

 

So far as timetabled trains are concerned, but could any owner, or representative thereof resist the temptation to see how it does on Golfa? Could you? No fibbing now!

Re Resita .... I think it's home stamping ground is a little less taxing.

 

On it's way judging from these pictures but no date promised.

https://www.facebook.com/1094767159...uN6PgYQL4kYdhciARuQVpZ5BLeoupNo8mel/?sfnsn=mo

 

The same was said for Superb when that visited, at least in 2017 I believe, Superb proved herself enough to be let loose in 2018, which is understandable if rating Superb as the equivalent of Joan.

Premier on the other hand is just a humble 0-4-2T, so unassisted trains to Welshpool might be a stretch too far with a typical load, but that's speculation.

 

Didn't Superb need the odd tweakette before giving of it's best?

Whilst an 0-4-2ST mightn't be the equivalent of the power of the BP twins, let's not forget what 0-4-2STs did on the not unduly level Corris!

 

Superb was allowed 3 Zillers on its own to Welshpool in 2018 so not really a full length rake. I suspect Premier at best will make it to Castle. They could of course use it to pilot all trains up Golfa and swap over at Sylfaen. Something similar was done when the Henschel from Bredgar visited in 1994(?).

 

Do I recall one of the S&K fleet not being too happy on it's first holiday to Powys, but considerably inproved next time around?

It's a shame the buffer arrangements on the W&L don't lend themselves to a good old Lickey style shove and drop back at the top!

If there's one thing 'new' locos and the line's visitors have demonstrated over the years, it's just how good BP's original design was all those years ago.

I once read somewhere that the W&L twins could be considered an enlarged six coupled derivative of the GVT locos. Does anyone know much about the genesis of the design, as "We want a loco to lump XX Tons up 1:30 uncompensated" seems a tad light on detail. Who for the W&L (or Cambrian?) approached who at BP?

 

As far as I understand (just from what I’ve read as I am actually 4000 miles away) Superb was a great success and exceeded all expectations. Chevallier had problems a few years before, it was kept for a while for tests to be carried out, but then went back to its owner. A pity as it looked really good in the photos.