A Talyllyn Railway pocket timetable card for 1957. After arrival at Abergynolwyn, the first afternoon train will have either been moved to the loop line, or propelled up the start of the mineral extension to allow the second train into the platform. The photograph by Pat Whitehouse shows locomotive 4 and train waiting on the extension while locomotive 6 runs around its train. This arrangement continued on certain days until the loop at Quarry Siding was commissioned in 1969.
A bright sunny morning with a cool Easterly breeze greeted the team this morning in Wharf Yard, perfect weather for the mornings activities. Andy Sheffield, Charles Benedetto, Pete Thomas and John Olsen had wagons to uncover and shunt around.
The first job was to clear the way for the covered wagon, no. 146, to come out of its winter quarters in the Gunpowder Store, which involved shifting some of the newly arrived Aberllefenni counterbalance wagon timbers and removing the Chattenden and Upnor points indicator. Then the three bar slate wagon, no.101, was rolled off the wagon turntable to allow no. 146 to be dragged out into the morning sun.
With the possibility of a photo charter requiring some of the wagons next week the team removed the yellow covers from all the ‘runners’, no. 117, 213 and 101, leaving no. 164 still under wraps as it is partially dismantled for repainting. The movement of no. 146 allowed further re-arrangement of the contents of the Gunpowder Store to allow John to uncover the shelves on the north side to check on the location and labelling of a pair of ex TR side chairs for switch rails; both were present and correct. The cover went back over the shelves and the sterling board wagon covers were neatly stacked in front of them.
Coffee time was declared and we took our seats inside the cafe out of the cool wind, where we were joined by Max Birchenough and Malcolm Phillips for our chocolate biscuits, coffee, chat and lemon drizzle nibbles.
Much refreshed we tackled the next stage of the yard work, shunting the wagons to release the two ‘runners’ from behind no. 164; the slate wagons were run down the siding, after the flangeways had been cleared of the muck that the recent rains had washed into them, and then no. 146 followed. This allowed no. 164, the two bar slate wagon with brake, to be moved across onto the wagon turntable just outside the Gunpowder Store as this is the optimum position for us to work on it.
The neatly folded yellow bags were stowed inside the Store and a start made on transferring the end door of the Corris Mail Waggon, the trestles and Workmates and the various tool boxes back from the museum, as it will soon be open seven days a week. We shuttled the items across and quickly filled the floor space so recently vacated by no. 146, but with everything removed from the museum we could do the final clear up and hoovering of the floors.
The wagons are now ready for their mechanical inspection and the museum is clear of any tools; ready for normal service to resume.
Photo by John Olsen
A Corris Railway Shipping Note. The blank form would be filled in with details of the wagon number and slates being conveyed. Most slate was carried in wagons owned by the individual quarry.
It was a pleasant dry morning for a change in Tywyn, but the tasks in hand were still all inside the museum. Andy Sheffield, Max Birchenough, Charles Benedetto and John Olsen continued with the winter refresh of the museum. John had been in during the intervening week to paint the plywood backing boards that were cut last week and had put up the scaffold tower in preparation for fixing them to the bogus beam above the stairs on the first floor.
Andy and Charles were tasked with getting the headboard mounts evenly spaced and at the right heights to display the first three headboards, the 1953 Coronation, the Platinum Jubilee and the passing of Queen Elizabeth. Max wielded the paint roller to apply a fresh coat of white paint to the wall below the windows looking into the Awdry Study as this had suffered much scuffing from many tiny shoes as youngsters gazed in at the original Thomas the Tank Engine model on the Ffarquhar layout. John went up the scaffold tower to prepare for the drilling of the mounting holes, moving the electronic sign out of the way and arranging extra lighting on the work site.
We stopped for a slightly early coffee as Ann McCanna was on her way to the Health Centre and had baked cakes for us, yum. We were presently joined by Tom Place for our morning coffee chat and chocolate biscuits, lemon drizzle biscuits and the afore mentioned cakes.
Replete with excess calories we returned to the museum where Charles and John went up the scaffold tower to affix the first backing board and the curse of the bogus beams struck again; this time in the form of an unexpected concrete insert. Shortened plas plugs overcame this issue and the board was soon populated with the three headboards. Andy prepared the second board, which was to hold the Coronation of King Charles and the Commonwealth Baton Relay headboards while Max put a second coat on the wall and then tidied away the painting gear. John hung the second board solo as the scaffold tower could not be placed in the optimum position for two to work on it, one holding the other drilling due to the positions of the lights and the bogus beam itself. Nonetheless this board too was soon in place and holding its head boards.
The scaffold tower was dismantled as we did not require it upstairs any longer and some tidying of tools was carried out but we were spared having to stow it all away under the stairs as the museum is not open this weekend.
As an interesting aside, John was returning to the museum from the Gunpowder Store when a local lady and her two children hopefully peered into the museum. They were chaperoned safely up onto William Finlays footplate and then upstairs to view cabinet C12, as the Welsh cape and hat had belonged to their grandmother and the family still retained a second set at home. The lady was encouraged to dust it off and return to the railway in full regalia on a suitable occasion and re-establish the close ties between the Talyllyn Railway and the family.
Photos by John Olsen
A third edition of Minimum Gauge Railways published in 1898 by Sir Arthur Percival Heywood. The book describes his railway at his home in Duffield Bank, Derbyshire, and the line at Eaton Hall, Cheshire. The book has now had some conservation work undertaken to the binding. The full text of the third edition is available online through Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org
The skies remained leaden over Tywyn this morning and had plenty more rain left to deposit in the yard, so the team assembled within the museum to tackle the remaining items on our winter works list.
Max Birchenough, Andy Sheffield, Charles Benedetto and John Olsen began by putting up the scaffold tower on the first floor so that we could safely access the beam at the head of the stairs to mount more commemorative headboards. John investigated the beam with an eye to fixing the mounts directly to it and discovered that this was another bogus beam consisting largely of air enclosed in a thin skin of plasterboard; concerned that the mounts could not be safely attached to the plasterboard the team was forced to rethink the attachment strategy.
As it was now 10:30am we decided to have our discussion over coffee and chocolate biscuits and we were joined by the duty attendant David Broadbent as no visitors had yet come into the museum.
Refreshed, and with an alternative plan, we returned to the museum to get the tools out to trim a length of plywood left over from a previous beam cladding exercise to repeat the process on this beam; using the known strong points to carry the weight of the plywood to which the mounts could be securely screwed. We took the plywood out onto the platform to perform the surgery and cut two pieces that will ultimately carry five headboards.
We had to stop at this point as we needed to disassemble the scaffold tower and stow away the tools so that visitors coming off the returning trains would not have these in their way. With the museum clear we left David to guide the first visitors of the day around the museum.
Photo by John Olsen
A sledge-braked wagon from the Furzebrook Tramway in Dorset.. The wagon is on loan to the Purbeck Mining Museum at Norden which is part of the Swanage Railway Trust.
A very grey and wet morning in Tywyn that precluded any work in the yard, to which end all the wagons remained covered over. Max Birchenough Charles Benedetto, Andy Sheffield and John Olsen worked inside the museum on general housekeeping and an important repair job.
It had been noted that the window winder operating the three fanlights over the big window facing Neptune Road had become very stiff and would effectively jam when they were only part open. John inspected the winder mechanism and the openers earlier in the week and found that they were not the problem, however he noted a lot of filings in the winder which indicated a likely problem in the conduit. This morning was the first opportunity to dismantle the winder and first section of conduit, that had two curved sections in it before the first opening mechanism, as John suspected this was where the PTFE conduit lining had failed and the operating wire was rubbing on the outer aluminium wall, causing the excessive friction and the filings.
Assisted variously by the other team members in between their cleaning jobs, John removed the inner operating wire and the first conduit section; extracting the wire from the rest of the system was very easy but it required much more pull to get it out of the curved conduit; case proven. Using spare conduit and operating wire left over from the installation, John began the repair by replacing the damaged conduit section, bending it in much larger radii than the original so as to minimise any future tendency for the wire to abrade the PTFE lining.
Having gotten a successful fit for the conduit between the winder and the first window opener, coffee break was called. We were joined in the cafe by Keith Theobald, Barbara Fuller, Ann McCanna and Tom Place, enjoying caffeine and chat with three different styles of chocolate biscuits. Yum.
Refreshed we returned to the museum to thread the new operating wire through the system and then set the open and closed positions of the windows before testing the operation several times. It was now time to tidy up; the tools were returned to their respective tool boxes and we cleared away the detritus of our industry ready for our next visitors.
A Manx Northern Railway semaphore fishtail signal from Ramsey. The line to Ramsey closed in 1969.
A rather grey, wet and dismal morning in Tywyn, but as we are still able to work inside the museum this week, it didn’t present a problem.
Max Birchenough, Andy Sheffield, Charles Benedetto, Pete Thomas and John Olsen picked up from last week with Charles ascending the scaffold tower to apply the micro crystalline conservation wax to the last display panel of locomotive nameplates. Pete made adjustments to an existing headboard mount so that it would fit a different head board, while Max continued his patient rust removal on the Chattenden and Upnor points indicator. John had been working on this during the week and successfully freed it so that we are not limited to just cosmetic restoration.
Andy had brought in his own paint brush to meticulously paint the frame of the large glazed panel just inside the platform entrance in fresh white. John made a simple fillet of wood to raise the Night Mail headboard by 3 1/2” so that it now matches the heights of the others around it on the beam upstairs. He also liaised with Ros who was conducting an overdue PAT test of all the museum’s electrical apparatus; one multi socket trailing block was found to be defective but otherwise we have a clean bill of health.
Ann McCanna came into the museum to check on numbers for our morning coffee and we joined her and Tom Place for our convivial chat, chocolate biscuits and caffeine fix.
Much refreshed we returned to the museum to tidy and clear away all the tools and scaffold tower, as next week we open for the schools half term holidays; the opening will be for two weeks so we will be hoping for dry weather so that we can work in the yard.
With the museum clear of obstacles, we left Ros to his work and finished for the morning.
Photos by John Olsen