DOUGAL ARRIVES IN TAIWAN

The Welshpool & Llanfair Light Railway’s diminutive Barclay 0-4-0T Dougal arrived in Taiwan on November 8, and was unloaded at the Taiwan Sugar Railway four days later. The consensus among those who unloaded it is that it is ‘cute’.

Visiting the island for six months, the locomotive will be a star attraction in the annual sugar festival in December. The event’s sponsor, the Taiwan Sugar Corporation (Taisugar), which operates several tourist railways on its sugar estates in Taiwan, will assess the 1946-built former Glasgow gas works engine with a view to carrying out the necessary boiler repairs to return it to steam for the first time since 2013 (SR485). No work will be undertaken without the prior agreement of the WLLR, however.

The railway bought a diesel locomotive from Taisugar in 2004. In 2017, it signed a twinning agreement with Taiwan’s Alishan Railway, a former forestry line known for its Shay-geared locomotives.

●● At Welshpool, work has started on extending the storage sheds towards Llanfair Caereinion to increase the railway’s undercover storage capacity.