Boston Lodge Works

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The workshops seen from a train. In the foreground David Lloyd George , the youngest of the four Double Fairlies built here

The Boston Lodge Works are the main workshops of the Ffestiniog Railway (FR) in County Gwynedd, Welsh . They are not only used for the maintenance and restoration of existing vehicles, but also for the occasional new construction of steam locomotives since 1879 - the last one to date was completed in 2010.

location

Aerial view in a south-easterly direction. The beginning of the dike The Cob can be seen in the front right . On the left edge of the picture is the old locomotive shed, which today is used to park historical vehicles.

The workshops are located about 1.6 km southeast of Porthmadog at the end of "The Cob", the closing dike of the Traeth Mawr .

The main line of the Ffestiniog Railway runs over this dike and turns around 90 ° to the northeast in the area of ​​the workshops. The factory site on the outside of this curve has two entry tracks, of which the one coming from the north is no longer of major importance.

The factory is on the A487 ; however, the access for trucks is very cumbersome due to the elevated position of the railway line to be crossed and impossible for low loaders, which is why rail vehicles delivered or delivered on the road usually have to be loaded in nearby Minffordd or at the train station in Porthmadog.

In addition to the workshops, there are also locomotive sheds, locomotive treatment facilities, a hall for storing passenger cars and residential buildings for railway employees on the factory premises.

history

The Britomart locomotives and the partially dismantled Earl of Merioneth in the workshop.

Originally there was a quarry on the site for the dyke construction carried out between 1808 and 1811 (the edge of the excavation can still be clearly seen directly behind the buildings). At that time there were also workshops, blacksmiths, accommodation for the workers and horse stables here.

The name Boston Lodge is derived from Boston (Lincolnshire) , the city for which William Madocks , the initiator of the levee construction, sat in parliament.

After the establishment of the Ffestiniog Railway in 1832, the stables were reused for the railroad's draft horses. From 1847 workshops for the maintenance of rail vehicles were built, and over time, the systems available today developed parallel to the technical advancement of the railway. In 1863 the FR put the first steam locomotive into operation; In 1879, the Double Fairlie Merddin Emrys was built, the first own locomotive.

Ammunition was manufactured at the Boston Lodge Works during the First World War. Between 1947 and 1954 the plant, like the Ffestiniog Railway itself, was closed. However, the systems were retained and could be used again after they were put back into operation.

Manufactured vehicles

The Lyd about a year before completion
Overhaul of the boiler of an NGG 16

A total of six steam locomotives were built in the Boston Lodge Works, four of them in the “preservation era”, the time after the FR was converted into a museum railway. All locomotives have a track width of 597 or 600 mm.

This makes Boston Lodge the only main private railway workshop in the world that has built steam locomotives itself in three centuries. Other locomotives were significantly rebuilt or completely restored; in addition to the locomotives of the FR were also the Garratt locomotives of the Welsh Highland Railway ( SAR class NGG 16 and the K1 ).

Most of the passenger cars used by the FR and WHR today were built in the Boston Lodge Works. Only the frames and bogies partly come from older wagons or were manufactured by other (metal construction) companies; Woodwork, planking, interior design, technical equipment and painting are all done in the Boston Lodge Works.

Orders from other railways are also accepted, for the first time in 1977 with the conversion of a Vale of Rheidol Railway locomotive to oil firing. Three passenger cars of the Welshpool and Llanfair Light Railway , which are replicas of the original passenger cars of this railway, also come from the Boston Lodge Works.

Future projects include the construction of a double fairlie for the FR's own use (as a replacement for Earl of Merioneth ), as well as one of two locomotives for the Lynton and Barnstaple Railway based on the Lyd locomotive .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Robin Jones: At last! An L&B Manning Wardle steams in our lifetime! Heritage Railway, September 2010, pp. 32-33.
  2. ↑ http://www.wllr.org.uk/news.htm News page of the WLLR
  3. ↑ F & WHR Homepage: James Spooner rides again. September 4, 2017, accessed September 3, 2018 .
  4. ↑ Two new Manning Wardle for Lynton , Narrow Gauge World, Vol. 133, September 2018, p. 6

literature

  • James IC Boyd: The Festiniog Railway 1800-1974; Vol. 1 - History and Route. The Oakwood Press 1975, ISBN 0-8536-1167-X .
  • James IC Boyd: The Festiniog Railway 1800-1974; Vol. 2 - Locomotives and Rolling Stock; Quarries and Branches: Rebirth 1954-74. The Oakwood Press 1975, ISBN 0-8536-1168-8 .
  • Peter Johnson: An illustrated history of the Festiniog Railway. Oxford Publishing Co. 2007, ISBN 978-0-86093-603-9 .

Web links

Commons : Boston Lodge  - Collection of pictures, videos, and audio files

Coordinates: 52 ° 55 ′ 10 ″  N , 4 ° 6 ′ 24 ″  W.