Electric and muscle power across The Cob
ALCO Mountaineer helps to pull in the funds, while Wickham provides electrifying experience.
MUSCLE power came to the fore as part of a fundraising effort, as Ffestiniog Railway’s (FR) ALCO 2-6-2T Mountaineer was dragged across The Cob to Harbour station on August 27 by 20 volunteers pulling a rope.
The loco was brought down to Boston Lodge behind Hibberd Planet 4wDM Upnor Castle from Glan-y-Pwll, where it has been stored since withdrawal in 2006.
The pull started at about 07.00 and was timed at 19minutes 34seconds with a peak speed of just over 4 miles an hour!
It was part of a fund-raising effort to start restoration of the loco to traffic (RM, August).
The previous day had seen the first FR battery-electric motive power cross The Cob. Youthful engineer Carwyn Coates had spent two weeks removing the motorcycle engine from a Wickham trolley, originally acquired by the FR in 1962, and converting it to electric power, employing Lithium batteries charged from the solar panels on the carriage shed.
The trolley was not the first electric vehicle ever to cross The Cob, that being a wagon powered by an electric bogie built by Nigel Bowman at the Launceston Steam Railway which visited the May 2010 Quirks and Curiosities event, but that vehicle had a diesel generator in the wagon.