- The Return to Welshpool, Day three - 823 Countess on a Mixed Train that will include the two Pickering Coaches, 19th October 2016
The Return to Welshpool, Day three - 823 Countess on a Mixed Train that will include the two Pickering Coaches, 19th October 2016
We’re delighted to be returning to the charming Welshpool & Llanfair Light Railway in October for some Western Region and Great Western Railway narrow steam action. Today (3 of 3) 823 will head up a GWR mixed train.
£55.00
Book your place
About this event
We are delighted to be able to offer a return visit to the charming Welshpool & Llanfair Light Railway in October 2016 for three days of Western Region and Great Western Railway narrow gauge branch line steam action featuring the line's two original locomotives on goods (BR) and mixed (GWR) trains.
The Welshpool & Llanfair Railway passed into the ownership of British Railways (Western Region) in January 1948 upon Nationalisation and the line survived for a further eight years of BR operation until closure on 3rd November 1956, when the two surviving locomotives were moved to Oswestry Works for storage. It is this period between 1948 and 1956 that the first two days of our charters seek to recreate, with No.822 in weathered black livery and a short goods train comprising the line's original rolling stock. The line was goods only from the close of 1931, the passenger coaches being scrapped around 1934. Those who attended the 2015 charters will readily appreciate how ideal this formation looked and this is always the most popular charter we run at the WLLR.
Today we will be using No.823 Countess in Great Western Railway green livery with two of the superb replica Pickering coaches built at Boston Lodge, plus two or three wagons and van to form a mixed train so prototypical of the line in the period from 1923 up until 1931 when the line's passenger service was withdrawn by the GWR. As the GWR also owned the competing bus service, it is perhaps not surprising that the Railway soon became a goods only operation! The original owners, the Cambrian Railway, merged with the Great Western in 1922 and the WLLR was part of the GWR from 1923 until 1948. We aim to recreate, as far as it is possible to do so, trains that would have been seen in the eight-year period in the 1920s and very early 1930s.
Our day will start and finish at Llanfair Caereinion station and we will aim for an early enough start to make best use of any available light in the section to Cyfronydd first thing in the morning. We expect the prime locations to have been cleared prior to the charters and we hope to do one or two new locations as well as the more traditional favourites. Those who have been before will know of the exceptional hospitality and enthusiasm displayed by the staff and volunteers of the Railway which make this line well worth supporting - not to mention the beautiful rolling countryside through which the line wends its eight-mile route.
Event cost £55.00 per person.
