Unique Fairbourne coach goes home after 37 years
THE Fairbourne Railway Preservation Society has purchased a historic coach from the Windmill Farm Railway and brought it back to mid-Wales.
The four-wheeled coach, No. 6, is the only surviving example of the three coaches built for Fairbourne in 1948 by Wilkins and Mitchell of Darlaston to supplement the existing Bassett-Lowke stock in the postwar rebuilding programme. The coaches were steel bodied on steel underframes, and each had a seating capacity for eight passengers on wooden seats.
While coaches Nos. 7 and 8 were subsequently scrapped, No. 6 was converted into a permanent way department wagon and remained as such until 1984, when it was sold to the Haigh Railway. Austin Moss acquired it in order to restore it for passenger use, and this was completed in time for a return to Fairbourne for a gala in 2014.
The coach has now become the first piece of rolling stock owned by the FRPS and is to form the basis of what is hoped to be a 15in gauge heritage train. It is joined at Fairbourne by the two glass-screen-ended open coaches built in 1950 for Dudley Zoo but resident at Fairbourne from 1960 until regauging of the line.
These are now in the ownership of society publicity officer Graham Billington. In addition, 1941 built-Lister Gwril is also at the railway, on loan from Austin.