Llanfair

A museum piece rather than a working loco, Llanfair is an example of the small 0-4-0 vertical boiler locos once used in North Wales quarries, built by the De Winton firm of Caernarfon. Llanfair was built to three-foot gauge in 1895, and worked in the granite quarries at Penmaenmawr, on the North Wales coast. Similar locos, to smaller gauges, worked in quarries served by the old NWNGR/WHR.The former De Winton premises at the Union Foundry stand across the road from Caernarfon Station, and the firm also produced ironwork for local use - its name is cast into the ironwork of the footbridges over the line in Caernarfon, and in the beams supporting the road (former rail) tunnel under Castle Square.

After preservation and partial restoration at the former Brockham Museum in Surrey (as seen above c.1972 - photographer unknown), the loco was kept at the Gloddfa Ganol Mountain Tourist Centre in Blaenau Ffestiniog until its closure in late 1997. Llanfair is now kept at Dinas. In September 2000 it received a protective coat of paint, probably the first conservation work to be done on the loco since it was at Brockham - but the aluminium finish on the boiler is perhaps a first for a De Winton! It is intended that when the railway's Caernarfon terminus is developed, Llanfair will go on display there, in the town of its birth.

Also on display with Llanfair were a small number of items of rolling stock from the Museum collection of the Ffestiniog Railway, comprising the famous Hearse Van, a loaded slate wagon, and a wharf wagon of the type once used on the slate wharves at Porthmadog, and in railway exchange yards at Blaenau Ffestiniog. These items were removed from Dinas in March 2002, for public display at Gelert's Farm.