THE 1961 Ian Allan ABC contains references to two locomotives named after Earls of Powis, both formerly owned by the Great Western Railway. There are full details of Castle 4-6-0 No. 5056 Earl of Powis, but they are sparse for 0-6-0T No. 822 The Earl (named after the same branch of the nobility), viz: ‘Unclass, W&L, Line Closed. Locos stored.’ Yet here is that very loco today on its native Welshpool & Llanfair Light Railway (W&L), standing at the water column outside Welshpool Raven Square station for every passing motorist on the adjacent A458 to admire.
The W&L is a remarkable story of the preservation movement in general, but of Welsh and narrow gauge aspects in particular. Different attempts to build a railway via various routes between the two towns (now in the county of Powys ‘with a y’) had failed in every decade from 1860 to the turn of the century. But opening was finally achieved in 1903 after benefiting from easement of construction requirements, plus subsidy and loans totalling £13,200, both of which had resulted from the 1896 Light Railways Act. Operations were to be performed by Cambrian Railways in return for 60% of revenue.
Perhaps the adage ‘if at first you don’t succeed, give up’ should have been applied, because year-round passenger services only lasted until 1931, the GWR (which absorbed the Cambrian at the 1923 Grouping) opting to safeguard its holdings by operating a parallel bus route. Arguably the heritage railway has now reversed the position, as the bus is reduced to a couple of return journeys, which is mirrored by the preserved railway’s shoulder-peak timetable and exceeded during its main tourist season.
Freight soldiered on against road competition for a while after the Second World War, but the cost of trans-shipping anything bound for beyond Welshpool was eventually insuperable, and inevitable closure took place on November 3, 1956. Efforts were then made to develop the line as a tourist attraction, with the Llanfair end
