The Welsh Pony locomotive is so old that its design dates from the dawn of steam traction on narrow-gauge railways. The loco was built for the Ffestiniog Railway (FR) in Gwynedd in 1867, and last used in the 1930s. Only its cousins, Prince and Palmerston, are older – by three years.
Welsh Pony, Prince and Palmerston were the ‘guinea pigs’ of narrow-gauge locomotive technology. All were obsolete well before the end of the 19th century, and yet FR continued to use them to shunt slate wagons. It even ordered a new boiler for Prince, shortly before the company ceased trading in 1946.
However, the railway and company were resurrected in the 1950s, with volunteer help, donations from well-wishers and income from tourists using the trains. And now, the historic steam loco Welsh Pony is being restored at a cost of £150,000, with the goal of returning it to service by 2017 – its 150th anniversary.
The FR is the world’s oldest railway company. The continuity has resulted in many drawings and patterns for FR equipment – Welsh Pony included – surviving the transition from the slate to the tourist era.
Welsh Pony was one of a pair of locos built in 1867 by George England & Co of Hatcham, London. The new locos were larger than the original four locos delivered by the same builder in 1864, and embodied modifications based on experience and physical improvements that the FR had made to the pioneering batch.
The George England company has also survived. Now known as Maybrey Reliance, it specialises in casting aluminium alloys and high-specification iron and bronze. While its main clients are in the aerospace, defence, petrochemical and construction industries, the company has supplied castings for heritage railways.
Jon Whalley, the FR’s mechanical engineer, hopes that at least some of the new castings required for Welsh Pony will come from the loco’s original builder.
Having established the viability of narrow-gauge steam traction – a technology that enabled countries across the world to build railways cheaply through challenging terrain – the FR quickly developed its own expertise in repairing and improving its locomotives, and by the late 1870s it was building its own.
The company manufactured almost all the components at its Boston Lodge workshops near Porthmadog – the main exception being boilers. These, instead, were bought from Manchester manufacturers. Interestingly, the drawings and entire specification for a new 1890 boiler for Welsh Pony fitted comfortably onto a single sheet of paper.
The boiler and numerous other of Welsh Pony’s components were replaced during the loco’s working life. However, many of the original 1867 items survive in good condition, including the wheel centres (castings within the steel tyres) and the inside motion – the mechanism between the frames that regulates the flow of steam to the cylinders.
Before restoration began, there was a debate among engineers, historians and other FR supporters about the most appropriate form of restoration. Proponents of cosmetic restoration argued that the locomotive was a three-dimensional archive object that future engineers could use to gain an insight into this branch of mechanical engineering from the 1860s to 1930s.
However, even restoring Welsh Pony to a sustainable condition as a static museum exhibit would have been challenging, because it had spent so many decades out in the Welsh rain.
From the early 1960s to 1985, it had been stored in the open air at Boston Lodge, where the available covered space was needed for locos and coaches that were in use or under restoration.
Then from 1985 to 2002, Welsh Pony was displayed on a plinth outside the FR’s station in Porthmadog, adjacent to what was then the main road through the town. The loco was an eye-catching advertisement for the FR, helping to pull in countless passengers whose ticket purchases helped to fund the railway’s continued rehabilitation. But being out in all weathers eventually took its toll on the historic locomotive.
Paul Lewin, the FR’s general manager, says: “When old artefacts are left outside, they corrode and become a pile of dust. We must have taken four or five wheelbarrows full of dust from Welsh Pony when we eventually dismantled it.”
Which version?
Having elected to restore the loco to working order, the next question was – which version were they going to recreate? The one that finished work in 1938 was different in various respects from the one delivered in 1867. “We decided that reverting the engine to its original condition wasn’t ideal, because we’d end up not using so much of the material that was already there,” says Whalley. “The better option was to restore the locomotive to exactly how it was at the end of its working life.”
One of the areas worst affected by exposure to the elements was the top of the cylinder blocks. The smokebox sat directly on top of the cylinder castings, says Whalley. “The acidic soot that’s been in there since the 1930s, combined with the damp, had eaten the top of the cylinder blocks away,” he says. New cylinder blocks have been cast by the FR’s volunteer pattern maker, Donald Bateman – who was able to refer to the original drawings and patterns.
The frames – parallel longitudinal members in the chassis – are also heavily corroded where they meet the cylinder blocks. A contractor has cut new frames, including rectangular notches for the axles, with computer-guided lasers. The sheet steel had been pre-rolled to a metric thickness. For historical accuracy, the metal was then ground to the thickness specified in 1867 – 13/16ths
of an inch.
Viewing Welsh Pony’s old frames at Boston Lodge provides an insight into the challenges faced by engineers in the 1860s, not only in building the world’s first narrow-gauge locomotives, but fitting everything into a small space.
The FR was laid with the inside edges of the rails only 597mm apart. All previous steam locomotives ran on track that was more than twice as wide, and subsequent narrow-gauge railways mostly had 1,000mm between the rails, or a similar imperial gauge. Moreover, the FR was built for horse-drawn slate wagons, and its bridges and tunnels were little bigger in cross-section than the holes cut through rock in slate mines.
Normally, frames stretch from one end of a loco to the other, providing reliable transmission of the load from the driven axles to the drawbar at each end. The fireboxes of the first narrow-gauge engines, by contrast, extended downwards almost to track level. The frames were therefore bolted to brackets on the front of the firebox. A shorter pair of frames was bolted to the back plate of the firebox to support the cab and rear drawbar.
In effect, the firebox formed part of the frame assembly. Welding will enable the same basic structure to be replicated safely and more robustly in the rebuilt locomotive.
The old frames also bear semi-circular indentations where the wheels rubbed – scars that bear witness to how hard Welsh Pony was worked. Whalley demonstrates where L-angle stiffeners along the top edge of the frames had begun to work loose, enabling the loco’s body to tilt against the wheel backs as it ran along the uneven track of the FR’s rudimentary sidings.
Boiler risk
However, the reason the locomotive was withdrawn from service in 1938 was not its age or general condition, but the boiler failing an hydraulic test. Welsh Pony was probably pressed into use quietly in 1939, despite the catastrophic consequences should the boiler have failed.
The surviving boiler – including the firebox – was ordered in 1912 and delivered after the outbreak of war in 1914. Records show that the replacement boiler was fitted to the loco in 1915.
By 1938, the FR was too strapped for cash to buy Welsh Pony another new boiler. Slate traffic had declined, and the FR had sufficient locomotives to handle what remained. But fortunately, the locomotive wasn’t scrapped.
Before construction of the locomotive’s new boiler could begin, the design had to be cleared by the FR’s insurers. The cylinder that will form the boiler barrel was supplied, ready-certified, by Deepdale Engineering of Dudley, West Midlands. The sides and backhead of the new firebox will be welded to the barrel at Boston Lodge. The inner firebox can then be fitted, followed by tubes and other components.The old boiler will be conserved and probably put on display.
Welding has been used to repair the outer skin of Welsh Pony’s saddle-shaped water tank, which dates from 1891. The curved upper part was sound, and new sheets of steel were welded to it on both lower sides. The new material was fastened to the tank frames with rivets. Welding here, and affixing fake rivet heads to the outer surface, was a cheaper alternative but deemed not authentic enough.
Most of the components in the restored locomotive will be pre-1938 originals. “The motion and mechanical parts look good,” says Whalley. Even the tyres can be used again.
The locomotive’s restoration – budgeted to cost £150,000 – had been considered previously, as far back as the mid-1950s. But other locos took precedence because Welsh Pony isn’t powerful enough to haul the long passenger trains that are usually required on the FR.
Welsh Pony will be reserved for shorter trains, usually on special gala days. Its boiler pressure will also be increased slightly, from the original 150psi to 180psi, to help it cope with modern demands.
To preserve authenticity, these and the few other planned modifications won’t alter the loco’s appearance. “By restoring Welsh Pony and replacing the worn-out parts, we’re effectively doing what would have been done to keep that engine in service normally,” says Whalley. “It’s just that there’s been a bit of a gap between 1938 and now.”
Welsh Pont facts
Smaller cousin: another Ffestiniog Railway loco, Prince, gives an idea of how Welsh Pony will look when restored to working order
Consigned to the archives: Welsh Pony was withdrawn in 1938 because this boiler failed a hydraulic test. The boiler will now be conserved as an archive object. In the bottom right, below the coal hole, is one of the repair patches that were riveted to the boiler between 1915 and 1938
Wheelsets: The Welsh Pony’s original wheel centres, dating from 1867, are still fit for reuse on the restored locomotive. The tyres, a mere 125 years old, can also be used again