Volunteer Les keeps traditional pattern-making alive at Bala
BALA Lake Railway volunteer Les Symonds is continuing the traditional and highly-skilled craft of pattern-making.
Local resident Les, a member of the elite Register of Master Turners, is making a pattern for new chimney tops for ex-Dinorwic Quarry Hunslet 0-4-0STs Alice and Holy War.
Both locomotives are under overhaul and returning to traffic later this year, and until now have been using chimneys that only bear a passing resemblance to the original.
However, accurate detailing of these locomotives is important as far as their historical integrity and accuracy in concerned, said railway chairman Julian Birley.
Les has been working with the foundry John Taylor and Co. in
Loughborough to carefully calculate the amount of shrinkage there will be in the casting process.
“With a complex design, this has been far from easy,” said Julian. “It is good to see such an art as this being retained in the 21st century.”