WELSH PONY TO STEAM AFTER 80 YEARS… ONLINE!
Sole surviving Ffestiniog Railway ‘Large England’ Welsh Pony will steam for the first time in 80 years in front of an online audience on June 27.
The 1867-built locomotive, which last worked in February 1940, was posed exclusively for Steam Railway at Boston Lodge in its almost finished state, ahead of the 0-4-0STT’s first steaming. Readers can view it via www.festrail.co.uk or the ‘Ffestiniog & Welsh Highland Railways Insider’ Facebook page; the first lighting up will stream live from 10am, followed by the first lifting of the safety valve at around 1pm.
Welsh Pony had been due to be launched at the railway’s ‘Fairlie Eventful’ gala on June 18-21 and was in the last stages of assembly when the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent national lockdown caused work to be suspended and the event to be cancelled, although subsequent easing of lockdown restrictions enabled five men working for three weeks to complete the outstanding jobs.
It has undergone one of the most extensive restorations ever carried out on an FR locomotive and features new frames, new cylinders and a new boiler, as much of the original locomotive was deemed too fragile for renovation when work on returning Welsh Pony to steam started in 2013. The original frames, boiler and cylinders have been retained for eventual display in Boston Lodge as part of the works’ redevelopment scheme.
Ffestiniog & Welsh Highland
Railways general manager Paul Lewin commented: “People never imagined they’d ever see Welsh Pony steam. It was either outside the station with kids climbing all over it, or stuffed down a siding hiding under a tarpaulin, so to think it’s days away from steaming again is a bit surreal.”
Welsh Pony will initially be outshopped in the deep plum livery worn by the FR’s heritage carriages, but will eventually be turned out in preservation-era FR deep bronze green as a tribute for former FR general manager Allan Garraway, who first proposed restoring Welsh Pony in the 1950s. It will not be united with its proper nameplates until supporters can attend a formal naming ceremony in person.