Thursday, April 28, 2016

The Welshpool and Llanfair Light Railway in 1960


In 2014 I travelled on the Welshpool and Llanfair Light Railway. After doing so I posted an old video of the lost line from through the streets of Welshpool that once connected the line's Raven Square station with the town's mainline station.

Click on the photo above to go to the BFI site and view film shot in 1960. It shows the whole line, including that abandoned section.

There you will also learn about the man who shot it:
Footage shot by Ion Trant, originally from Dovea Farm, Tipperary, Ireland. He farmed Maesmawr farm, Welshpool (plus the adjoining farm, Cefn Du and a Radnorshire hill farm, Esgairdraenllwyn) with his wife, Janet (nee Lewis). Conscious of a growing gulf between town and country, he welcomed school visits to his farm and created the BBC children’s series "Country Close-Up" (1956-62), featuring his land and children.

2 comments:

Tim (Kalyr) said...

It was a remarkable anachronism by the time it closed (in 1956, so the date on the BFI site must be wrong). Last survivor of the common-carrier narrow-gauge railways of England and Wales, most of which closed in the 1930s because they couldn't compete with road transport. Lucky to last long enough that the preservation movement had got going

Jonathan Calder said...

Thanks, Tim. You are right, of course - the line lay dormant between 1956 and 1963.