…WHILE ‘2MT’ IS REUNITED WITH CAMBRIAN DRIVER
Visiting Ivatt ‘2MT’ 2-6-0 No. 46521 was reunited with a former driver to round off the Llangollen Railway’s ‘Along Cambrian Lines II’ gala.
Terry Lloyd, a former Penmaenpool driver, stepped back onto the footplate of the Great Central Railway-based ‘Mogul’ at Llangollen station on October 14, the final day of the three-day event.
During 1963 and 1964,
No. 46521 was nominally allocated to Machynlleth but was often found at Penmaenpool shed for working the shuttle service from Dolgellau to Barmouth. It hauled the final 2.55pm Barmouth-Bala train on January 16 1965, with detonators laid on the track at Dolgellau and Bontnewydd, and a black flag flying at half-mast at Penmaenpool.
Another ‘reunion’ took place as GWR ‘57XX’ 0-6-0PT No. 7714, from the Severn Valley Railway, returned to its former home area after a 60-year absence. The pannier was allocated to Birkenhead from 1937 to 1958, then moved briefly to Wrexham before withdrawal and sale to the National Coal Board in 1959.
Resident ‘Large Prairie’
No. 5199, ‘64XX’ No. 6430 and BR ‘4MT’ 2-6-4T No. 80072 also took turns on a variety of recreated branch line, local and mixed trains.