Talyllyn commemorates 150 years of passenger trains

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TALYLLYN Railway completed its 150th anniversary celebrations
on December 16 with a re-enactment of the line’s first public passenger train.

Talyllyn Railway’s Fletcher, Jennings 0-4-0WT No. 2 Dolgoch and Barclay/TR 0-4-2T No. 7 Tom Rolt await the 19.00 departure of a ‘Carol’ train from Tywyn Wharf station on December 16, which carried 100 people to a service at Abergynolwyn station. BARBARA FULLER

The same locomotive as worked the first train in December 1866 (Fletcher, Jennings 0-4-0WT No. 2 Dolgoch), hauling the vehicles believed to have formed the original train (coaches Nos. 3 and 4 and brakevan No. 5), departed Tywyn Wharf station at 13.20, paused at Tywyn Pendre
(Tywyn’s original passenger terminus) then continued to Abergynolwyn. There, Talyllyn society president David Mitchell and general manager Tracey Parkinson, both in Victorian attire, delivered speeches.

Talyllyn Railway’s anniversary celebrations began in 2014 and continued through a series of galas in 2015 and 2016, tracing the story of the railway and celebrating landmark dates.

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The precise date of the first passenger train is uncertain. The start of public passenger services was reported in the North Wales Chronicle of December 22, 1866, which noted passenger trains on the railway had begun departing from Abergynolwyn at 8am and 3pm Monday to Saturday, so it is assumed the first such train ran sometime in mid-December 1866.

Trains have run on the line every year since.

Read more News in February’s issue of The RM – out now!

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