Farewell to Welshpool’s Ralph Cartwright

THE Welshpool & Llanfair Light Railway is mourning the loss of long-serving volunteer and vice president Ralph Cartwright, who died on February 27 at the age of 87.

He made an immense contribution to the WLLR over almost all of the line’s entire heritage-era history and edited the quarterly Llanfair Railway Journal for an unprecedented period of 30 years, from its first evolution in spring 1968 from the original newsletter also called The Earl, to his retirement with the May 1998 edition.

With RT Russell, Ralph co-authored a definitive history of the line, and travelled widely to give talks on the railway to groups, generating essential publicity and donations.

His funeral took place on March 15 at the Flintshire Memorial Park and Crematorium.