page_title: Talyllyn Railway
section_title: Rescue: 1951–1960
hierarchical_section_title: Talyllyn Railway / History / Preservation / Rescue: 1951–1960
caption_attribution_description: English: Former Guinness loco at the Narrow Gauge Railway Museum at the Talyllyn Railway Deutsch: Talyllyn Railway: Die Lokomotive der Guinness Brauerei, das erste Objekt für das Schmalspurbahnmuseum
context_page_description: The Talyllyn Railway is a narrow gauge preserved railway in Wales running for 7 ¹⁄₄ miles from Tywyn on the Mid-Wales coast to Nant Gwernol near the village of Abergynolwyn. The line was opened in 1865 to carry slate from the quarries at Bryn Eglwys to Tywyn, and was the first narrow gauge railway in Britain authorised by Act of Parliament to carry passengers using steam haulage. Despite severe under-investment, the line remained open, and in 1951 it became the first railway in the world to be preserved as a heritage railway by volunteers.
  Since preservation, the railway has operated as a tourist attraction, expanding its rolling stock through acquisition and an engineering programme to build new locomotives and carriages. In 1976, an extension was opened along the former mineral line from Abergynolwyn to the new station at Nant Gwernol. In 2001, the preservation society celebrated its 50th anniversary, and in 2005 a major rebuilding and extension of Tywyn Wharf station took place, including a much-expanded facility for the Narrow Gauge Railway Museum.
  The fictional Skarloey Railway, which formed part of The Railway Series of children's books by The Rev. W.
context_section_description: The author and biographer Tom Rolt, visited the line in 1949, along with the locomotive engineer David Curwen. In the summer of 1950, Rolt wrote a letter to the Birmingham Post newspaper suggesting that a rescue of the Talyllyn be undertaken. He received sufficient positive response for a meeting of interested enthusiasts to be held on 11 October 1950 at the Imperial Hotel in Birmingham. Around 70 people, including Patrick Whitehouse, attended the meeting, with Rolt proposing the formation of a committee to look into the acquisition of the railway. With the support of the meeting, the committee – with Rolt as chairman and Whitehouse as Secretary – met for the first time on 23 October and immediately entered into negotiation with Haydn Jones' executors.
  The transfer of ownership to the committee was legally complex, but both parties agreed that all shares in the railway company would be transferred from Haydn Jones' estate to a new company called Talyllyn Holdings Ltd., whose board consisted of two directors from the executors and two from the committee. The transfer took place on 8 February 1951, at which point the newly formed Talyllyn Railway Preservation Society effectively took control of the railway. The Society immediately began to publicise its efforts, hoping to raise funds and find further volunteers to help reopen the railway, and by May nearly 650 members had joined the society. The railway re-opened under the control of the Society for the first time on the Whit Monday bank holiday, 14 May 1951, with trains running between Wharf and Rhydyronen stations. Regular trains began to run on 4 June and continued through the summer, with David Curwen acting as the first Chief Mechanical Engineer.
   In the early years of preservation, the line struggled to operate using the original rolling stock. When the line was taken over in 1950 Dolgoch was the only operating locomotive and it was apparent that it was in need of a major overhaul. To enable operations to continue two further steam locomotives, Nos. 3 and 4, were purchased from the recently closed Corris Railway in 1951 and named Sir Haydn and Edward Thomas respectively. Because both railways were built to the unusual gauge of 2 ft 3 in (686 mm)  it was relatively easy to adapt the Corris locomotives to work on the Talyllyn. No. 3 became the first new locomotive to travel on the railway for over 80 years in 1951, but it frequently derailed, and on inspection it turned out that the Talyllyn track was laid approximately half an inch (13 mm) wider than the official gauge, a deliberate policy by the old company to accommodate the long wheelbase of Talyllyn. Both Talyllyn and Dolgoch had unusually wide wheel treads that allowed them to stay on the wide-of-gauge track. This problem was eventually cured by relaying the railway to its correct gauge and altering Talyllyn's trailing wheels to allow them to swivel horizontally, shortening the locomotive's fixed wheelbase. No. 4 was unserviceable when it arrived, but John Alcock, the chairman of the Hunslet Engine Company, was a member of the Preservation Society and had No. 4 overhauled free of charge at his works. No. 4 then began service on the railway in 1952 and worked the majority of the trains that season.
  Another early addition to the locomotive fleet was No. 6 Douglas, donated to the society by the Birmingham engineering firm Abelsons Ltd. This locomotive was built for the depot railway serving RAF Calshot where it worked until 1945, and, after rebuilding from its original 2 ft (610 mm)  gauge, it entered service in 1954. Through the 1950s the volunteers and staff members of the TRPS rebuilt the line and rescued it from its state of decay, during a period characterised by a "Boy's Own comic spirit of adventure, involving enthusiasm, ingenuity and a fair degree of irresponsibility".
  On 22 May 1957 the BBC produced a live outside broadcast from the railway, during which Wynford Vaughan Thomas and Huw Weldon commentated on a trip from Dolgoch to Abergynolwyn. The publicity from this broadcast drew substantial numbers of vi
caption: The Guinness brewery locomotive, the first exhibit donated to the Narrow Gauge Railway Museum
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