Some time ago, I put a call out for pictures of our locomotives in the days before
preservation and as a result received an email from Ted Buckley offering his pictures
of our locomotives at Barry Scrapyard. Ted has sent through pictures of 48518 and
Willington Hall which have been loaded up on to their specific pages on the Archive
Website and pictures of Jinty no 7298 (Now known as “Thomas”) when in Barry Scrapyard
and in the Rainhill 150 cavalcade.
These are superb archive pictures and I am very grateful to Ted for allowing me to
load them on to the website.
If anyone else has archive pictures of our locomotives and would be willing to let
me upload them, please contact me via the link above.
John Rutter
Since Ted’s generous offer, several collections of pictures have been handed over
to the SAL Management team for recording and archiving. Most of these have been either
prints or slides. It is a slow job to scan them all and file the results, so please
be patient and eventually, the results will be available via Dave Allen, the Photographic
Archivist.
Well, the day finally came. All the blood, sweat & tears expended by the small group
of people, in particular Bill Shakespeare, Gordon Heddon and Neil Evans and not forgetting
JMP Consultants, in the compilation of the Transport and Works Order for the extension
of the Railway to Corwen finally produced the document.
Eventually, all the additional documentation was in place and work started.
Due to funding restrictions, the project has been split into ‘Phase 1 and Phase 2’
The first job of phase 1 was to clear the site of the new temporary platform at Corwen,
then clear brushwood elsewhere. At the same time re-fencing of the trackbed commenced.
This is now almost complete and track laying in in the planning stage. The first
operation was to lift the panels of bulhead rail on wooden sleepers laid beyond the
target gate marking the end of the running line to the west of Carrog Station. These
panels have been relaid with flat bottom rail on concrete sleepers. The pedestrian
crossing at the end of this section is having new kissing gates fabricated.
Having been on the track gang for the Deeside and Glyndyfrdwy extensions (I missed
the Carrog one due to redundancy) I can recommend the experience to anyone. The freedom
of being out in the countryside with no responsibilities (let someone else do the
worrying) physically working hard with a great gang of people and the sense of a
job well done at the end is worth all the therapy in the world (and is a lot more
effective!) particularly when you see a train running over “your” bit of track. I’ll
keep you all posted on developments.
John (4th October 2011)
As of 28th January 2011, I am the Webmaster for the Archive and History website only.
Updates on the Loco Rosters are added here as I get them. This website will be updated
progressively over the next few months. There is a great deal of new material in
storage awaiting uploading to this site which will be done as time allows.
John Rutter
Well - here it is at last! The facelifted Archive and History website. As well as
a new look front page, I have tidied the indexing and eliminated several general
pages to make navigation easier. I have also added some new pages, in particular
the Corwen Extension page so that information on the project is easily availble.
There is also a ‘News’ page which will be added to as events happen. This page will
supplement the pages on the main website.
As time goes on I will add to the photo galleries as I have hundreds of photos of
events which are not yet shown.
John Rutter
