Seemed useful to have a general purpose thread for this most quintessential breed of engines.
A snippet from the local paper: the Padarn Lake Railway's "
Tomos Bach" has recently been renamed "
Wild Aster", the name it carried for much of its service at Dinorwic.
I had seen the loco with its new/original name a couple of weeks back and put it down to my imagination running wild, but the photo in the newspaper proves it!
Here's a pic before the renaming and still with the cab:
🔗Llanberis-2-User-Album-Image-38458[linkphoto]Llanberis-2-User-Album-Image-38458[/linkphoto][/link]
The newspaper article also suggests that the cab will be removed for the "summer" season, returning it to a much more authentic look, although it probably needs that blue paint covering up with black and a couple of blocks of wood nailing to the buffer beams... 😉
For the record,
Wild Aster was no.849, built in 1904 for the Dinorwic Quarry. It was sold to the Padarn lake Railway in 1969, but did not run until 1988, almost three decades after it had last worked.
It originally carried No.7 but was renamed
Wild Aster following the tradition of naming locos after racehorses.
*****
The BBC notes the recent 40th anniversary of the closure of the quarries -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_west/8208048.stm
A series of events have been organised to mark the 40th anniversary of the closure of Dinorwg Quarry in Llanberis.
Three hundred and fifty men lost their jobs when the quarry closed in August 1969, bringing to an end a way of life in the area dating back to the 1780s.
Marketing officer Julie Williams said the anniversary would concentrate on the effect the closure had on the area.
As well as an exhibition and guided walks, a drama about the closure has been commissioned.
"We'll be trying to put the history of the closure in perspective," said Ms Williams.
"We'll look at this important chapter in history and looking closely at the effect the quarry closure had on the community and the people living here."
Ms Williams said that only 100 years previously the quarry had been huge - with Dinorwig, and Penrhyn quarry in Bethesda capable of producing more slates than the other quarries in the world put together.
"The strange quietness that came to Dinorwig in August 1969 had an enormous and far-reaching effect on the area," she added.
An exhibition of old photographs shows the quarry and the workers, and details of the auction to sell the equipment after it closed.
There are also guided walks, an open day, and a concert.
The commissioned play, "Y Cau" (The Closing) will be staged at the museum in Llanberis on 20,21, and 22 August.
It will feature the stories of individuals and the effect of the closure on them and their families.
"The closure of Dinorwig Quarry was a key event in the history of the slate industry," said museum education officer Elen Roberts.
"We hope this drama, which has been especially commissioned, will bring the whole situation alive for our visitors."
The drama will be staged outside the row of quarry workers' homes at the slate museum.
"The drama deals with the feelings of one family - from personal fears about the future, to social pressures at a time when the Investiture was at Caernarfon Castle, to the increase in Welsh awareness," said director Siwan Llynor.
Hello again darkness, my old friend...