WELSHPOOL & Llanfair Light Railway’s (W&LLR) June 17/18 ‘60 Years of Preservation’ weekend will not only feature the return to service for the first time since early 2000 of S FBelge 0-8-0T (ex-No. 699.01) No. 10 Sir Drefaldwyn (RM, April) but a visiting coach from the Sittingbourne & Kemsley Light Railway (SKLR).
The weekend forms a ‘double diamond’ celebration, the 60th anniversary of the April 6, 1963 reopening of the W&LLR as a heritage railway run by volunteers and, another 60 years (and two days) earlier, the April 4, 1903 original opening of the railway.
With the W&LLR’s original carriages having been scrapped in the 1930s following the withdrawal of passenger services, the preservation company acquired a set of very basic ‘toastrack’ carriages in 1961 from the Navy’s Upnor & Lodge Hill Railway in Kent. These vehicles served the W&LLR until better vehicles became available, following which they returned to Kent having been sold to the SKLR.
One of these vehicles will return to Mid-Wales to recreate the appearance of the W&LLR’s earliest preservation years.