Enthusiasts' Weekend at WHR (Caernarfon)
September 19-20th 1998
The September 1998 Enthusiasts' Weekend was WHR (Caernarfon)'s
first "proper" marketed special event. It was marked by both the
entry into service of new permanent fleet members, and the first visiting
locomotives.
NGG16 no. 143 made its real public bow over the weekend, following
a rapid assembly of the various main components which had been overauled at
Dinas, Boston Lodge and Bury, and wearing its black South African livery.
The loco was not yet in perfect fettle, and ran most trains double-headed
with no. 138 - another first.
The recently arrived Pullman car Bodysgallen also entered
service over the weekend.
The event brought three visiting locomotives to WHR (Caernarfon),
one from the Ffestiniog and two from the Leighton
Buzzard Railway, but all with strong local connections. In addition to
their appearance on display and "drive-an-engine" duty at Dinas, the visitors
also ran light engine to Caernarfon during the event.
Palmerston
The Ffestiniog Railway's 1864 George England 0-4-0STT Palmerston was
the first engine used on the original Welsh Highland to return to Dinas. Palmerston
was hired to contractors completing the southern end of the line in 1923, and
was later used frequently on the WHR, as were the FR's other England engines,
particularly on Portmadoc - Beddgelert trains. The loco was returned to steam
in 1993 after a major overhaul, and is in its unmodernised early 20th-century
condition. As such, Palmerston achieved the obscure distinction of
becoming the first coal-fired loco ever to reach Caernarfon on the Welsh Highland
- seen here descending the gradient into the town.
Chaloner
Chaloner is an older relative of resident Llanfair, having
been built by De Winton of Caernarfon in 1877, at the Union Foundry, whose main
building still stands across the road from Caernarfon Station. This firm produced
ironwork still to be found throughout the area (for instance parts of bridges
near the station), and specialised in supplying machinery for slate quarries.
These simple vertical-boilered locomotives owe more to marine engineering than
to conventional railway practice, and replaced horse haulage in many quarries.
Chaloner worked in the Nantlle Vale south of Caernarfon, first at Pen-y-Bryn
and later Pen-yr-Orsedd quarries, and is the only original De Winton in working
order. Usually based at Leighton Buzzard, this is a widely-travelled engine,
its past ports of call including the FR and WHR (Porthmadog).
Alice
This 1902 Hunslet 0-4-0ST spent its working life high on Elidir mountain, in
the Dinorwic slate quarries at Llanberis. Cannibalised of many parts, it was
abandoned in its shed after the quarries closed, and considered by many an "impossible"
restoration project because of its inaccessibility. Following a dramatic rescue
by West Lancashire Light Railway members, in which Alice was brought
down the mountain over derelict quarry inclines, the remains of the loco (now
minus boiler) stood for many years at the Bala Lake Railway before its present
owner undertook a complete rebuild to "as new" condition, which was completed
in 1993 at the FR's Boston Lodge Works. Unlike many surviving quarry Hunslets,
Alice remains in its original cabless condition, a concession to low
tunnels in the quarries. Like Chaloner, Alice is based at
Leighton Buzzard.
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Authored by Ben Fisher; last updated
January 5th, 2003
