Category: Press Releases

A key part of the lead-up to Christmas for model railway enthusiasts is the Annual Warley National Model Railway Exhibition at the NEC Birmingham which this year takes place on November 25th between 9:45am and 6:00pm and November 26th between 9:45am and 5:00pm.

The Corris Railway will have a stand there (E78 in Hall 5) selling a wide range of Corris related books and goods including Christmas cards, our 2024 calendar and the new booklet telling the story of the construction of our new steam locomotive, “Falcon” No. 10. If you aren’t attending the show these can be purchased from our online shop at any time.

And after Warley it is only two weeks to our Santa Trains which will be running on December 9th and 10th from Corris Station at 11.00am, 12.30pm, 2.00pm and 3:30pm. Pre-booking is essential as seats are limited and tickets can be booked online now at any time.

The new Corris Railway steam locomotive “Falcon” No. 10 completed its first spell of operations on October 21st having headed all passenger trains since its entrance into traffic on September 8th. The locomotve has worked very well since delivery from Alan Keef Ltd but as is inevitable with a new machine a snagging list was drawn up as No. 10 worked and engineer’s from Keef’s and the Corris were due to work on these minor problems in the last week in October. In the new year its paintwork will be completed by the addition of lining out ahead of the resumption of passenger train services at Easter 2024. A 36 page full colour booklet telling the story of the “Falcon” from inception to its first workings has been produced and can be purchased from the Corris’ website shop for £3 plus p and p.

Before that the annual Santa Trains will run on December 9th and 10th and these will be headed by the Corris’ other steam locomotive “Tattoo” No. 7. Bookings should be made in advance on-line as seats are limited.

Whilst the “Falcon” has attracted news stories and passengers other projects have been taken forward by the volunteers and work will continue through the winter. The latest new build carriage is moving towards completion in the workshops at Maespoeth Junction and when finished will offer First Class accommodation for the first time in the history of the line’s revival. Amongst developments with the waggon fleet a new trestle waggon has been completed so that the Railway can demonstrate once again how slabs of slate were once conveyed along the Dulas Valley from the quarries to the mainline station at Machynlleth. Painting, track maintenance and control of lineside vegetation is always ongoing and more volunteers will be welcome. Track work is cheaper than gym fees.

Having seen the finale of one major project with the completion of No. 10 and its arrival on the line the Corris will now turn its thoughts and efforts to a very big target, extending the line southward from Maespoeth Junction to Pont Y Goedwig which will double the length of the journey for passengers. Work to be done and funded includes completion of a new embankment and bridging the Goedwig stream itself. The new embankment is underway but it and the crossing will now be the “large project” focus.

The embankment is necessitated by the loss of part of the original route of the line to road improvements made to the A487.

Saturday October 21st will be the last day of Corris Railway trains for the 2023 main season and a chance to ride behind No. 10, our new “Falcon” steam locomotive which will head the 11.00, 12.00, 13.30, 14.30 and 15.30 trains from Corris station.

The train trips are ideal for families with children. The short trip doesn’t allow for boredom to set in while the adults enjoy the beauties of the Dulas Valley in autumn and we provide some quizzes to be tried. And if the children need to let off steam there is a playground beside Corris station.

Our Museum and Shop at Corris station will be open and with Christmas getting closer there are our Christmas cards and our 2024 Calendar to purchase along with other goods for all ages.

Our next trains will be our Santa Specials on December 9th and 10th for which seats can be booked in advance on-line.

For many people connected with the revival of the Corris Railway, Christmas came early this year with the delivery of the new steam locomotive, Falcon – No. 10, on August 30th and it beginning to work service trains on September 9th.

So it is appropriate that it will work the special trains from Corris station on December 9th and 10th taking passengers to meet Santa Claus making his annual visit to the Railway at Maespoeth Junction. Of course he will have a present for every child travelling on his special trains and his helpers will have seasonal refreshments for all.

The Museum and Shop at Corris station will be open and among the goods on sale will be our 2024 Calendar and a booklet telling the story of how No. 10 was made, plus our Christmas cards. These can be purchased online now in the case of the calendar and cards and from Saturday September 23rd onwards for the new booklet.

If you can’t wait that long to enjoy a journey behind No. 10 it will be heading trains on September 23rd, 24th, and 30th and on October 7th, 14th and 21st (not the 3:30pm train on this day).

Wednesday August 30th 2023 was notable for promising not just a super moon, the largest of the year, but also a blue moon.

On a more local scale it was also notable for the arrival at the Corris Railway of its new steam locomotive No. 10, the Falcon, from the workshops of Alan Keef Ltd based in the village of Lea near Ross-on-Wye. It was the second newly constructed steam locomotive to be built for the revival of the oldest narrow gauge railway in Mid Wales following the delivery of Tattoo No. 7 in 2005. The new arrival will mean that there will be two steam locomotives permanently based in the Maespoeth Junction locomotive shed since 1948.

The arrival of the Falcon marks a final stage in a project that has taken over twelve years and four hundred thousand pounds to take it from a proposal to completion. Many thanks goto the folk at Alan Keef’s for their patience and phasing of the construction as funds were raised and the quality of their workmanship. Some components were made commercially in Bradford, the East and West Midlands and Kent whilst others are the outcome of the engineering skills of some Corris Railway Society volunteers. Thanks are due to all concerned on that front and also to the people who have made financial contributions, bought sales goods from stands at shows or bought raffle tickets. Everyone concerned can look at No. 10 and think – I helped to make that possible.

The new locomotive will make its public debut over the weekend of September 9th and 10th heading passenger trains that will leave Corris station at 11.00, 12.00, 13.30, 14.30 and 15.30. Tickets can be booked from www.corris.co.uk/tickets in the next couple of days. The Railway’s shop and museum at Corris station will be open.

Other operating dates planned for No. 10 will be September 16th, 17th, 23rd and 24th, 30th and October 7th, 14th and 21st at the same times as above. Note that on October 21st the 15.30 train will be diesel worked.

Any enforced variance from these plans will be notified online.

There is a separate special event being held by our friends and near neighbours at the Talyllyn Railway on September 23rd and 24th at which the Corris’ diminutive battery electric locomotive No. 9 will be a guest there whilst No. 10 works at Corris.

There will of course be some final invoices to be paid and any help with these will be appreciated either via the Falcon section of this website or by cheque, payable to Corris Railway, sent to Rosie Guest, 38 Underwood Close, Callow Hill, Redditch, B97 5YS.

On the 20th of August 1948 a short freight train made its way up the Dulas Valley on the narrow gauge line between Machynlleth and Aberllefenni. The route was once the Corris Railway but it was by then a small branch line operated on three days a week by British Railways who were keeping an eye on the way bank erosion of the River Dyfi was encroaching on the lineside at Machynlleth. As concern grew the decision was made that the railway would have to close and that small train was to be the last.

Over the following months the tracks were lifted and it looked as though the Corris was lost for ever. More happily the two steam engines found a new home at the Talyllyn Railway where they have worked for seven decades along with the brake van from that last train.

However thanks to the patient work of the volunteers and many years of fund raising trains will be running between Corris Station and Maespoeth Junction on August 20th this year. Passenger trains, headed by steam locomotive No. 7, a descendant of the 1921 built No. 4 now at the Talyllyn, will leave Corris Station at 11.00, 12.00, 13.30, 14.30 and 15.30.

A week later the Corris Railway Society’s annual Model Railway Exhibition will be held at Y Plas in Machynlleth on August 26th and 27th. This year’s event will, perhaps appropriately, feature a large number of narrow gauge layouts in various scales but there will also be a range of exhibits in other scales. For those in a nostalgic mood one layout will feature Hornby Dublo, still going strong six decades after the famous marque was discontinued and another will see Tri-ang Big-Big trains running on their plastic track. In addition to the layouts there will be a variety of sales stands and refreshments will be on sale. Car parking is available nearby.

Trains will be running from Corris Station on both days whilst the Exhibition is on.

Visitors to the workshops of Alan Keef Ltd at the end of June who have been following the construction of the new Corris Falcon steam locomotive could have been forgiven for thinking they had stepped back in time by twelve months. No. 10 had been partially dismantled and resembled its condition in early summer 2022.

However this does not mean that a problem has arisen, rather that the construction of Corris Railway No. 10 is nearing its completion as this stripping down is to prepare the locomotive for fitting of boiler cladding and painting. The livery that it will carry will be similar to that sported by Corris Railway Tattoo No. 7 which has been working on the revived section of the Mid Wales narrow gauge line since 2005.

With the final assembly and painting due to take place there will also be final invoices to be paid and any contributions towards these will be welcome. Online payments can be made via www.corris.co.uk or cheques, payable to Corris Railway can be sent to Peter Guest, 38 Underwood Close, Callow Hill, Redditch, B97 5YS.

Sunday August 20th will see passenger trains operating on the revived section of the Corris Railway, leaving Corris station for Maespoeth Junction, seventy five years to the day from when the last service ran on the original line between Machynlleth and Aberllefenni. Unlike other lines’ finales there was no junketing, speeches, or special trains to mark the original closure in 1948. The final working was a short goods train headed by locomotive No. 3 as part of the thrice weekly freight service which the service had been reduced to during the Second World War. Passenger trains had ceased at the end of 1930.

One reason why the last train went unmarked was that no-one knew it would be the last although British Railways, which had acquired responsibility for the Corris eight months earlier at the start of 1948 when nearly all of Britain’s railways were nationalised, had become concerned about erosion of the trackbed where the line crossed the River Dovey/Dyfi. Further erosion occurred, although in fact the line was never severed, and the decision to close the route and transfer the traffic to road vehicles was taken. The line was taken up and that appeared to be that. The two remaining steam engines, some waggons and rail eventually went to the Talyllyn Railway.

However thanks to the efforts of the Corris Railway Society a works train headed by a small diesel locomotive worked into Corris station and passenger trains resumed in 2002. Steam hauled passenger trains began again on August 20th 2005 headed by a newly built locomotive.

With the passage of seventy five years it is inevitable that very few people can now remember the original line. Earlier this year Selwyn Humphreys died. He was the son of the last regular footplate man on the old line and took an interest in the revival including visiting the Open Day at the workshops of Alan Keef Ltd in 2022 where he stepped aboard the footplate of the next new steam loco being built for the Corris Railway. When visiting the line he would check that the slate wall by the engine shed doors at Maespoeth Junction still bore the name he had carved into it when a child. It does.

A more formal commemorative plaque has now been affixed to the wall of the carriage shed at the Junction marking the passing of Gwyn Briwnant Jones who wrote and compiled a number of books about the Corris amongst other works. His father was the Chief Clerk for the Corris and moved to a similar position at Machynlleth station after the GWR take over in 1930. This gave Gwyn opportunities to explore and get to thoroughly know the narrow gauge line and the people who worked and used it. This knowledge was put to particular use in his book Great Western Corris. He was hugely supportive of the revival, becoming Vice President of the Corris Railway Society, and many activists received his thoughtful letters of thanks and appreciation for their work.

The second week in April saw a Land Rover and trailer arrive at Maespoeth Junction to collect a railway vehicle from the Corris Railway for onward movement to an eventual new home with the Ashton Packet Boat Company, Manchester – under the custodianship of Adam Rickett. They have preserved the oldest wooden narrow boat in the world, and host railway enthusiast days in aid of ‘Francis House Family Trust’ (Registered Charity no. 328659). The railway is a genuine industrial railway dating back to the early 1970’s. Enthusiast days there have grown in popularity over recent years with the collection of varying items of rolling stock. The site is a very close community and the coach will provide enjoyment to those individuals restoring it.

It was accompanied on its way by some surplus rail fixing spikes purchased by the Glyn Valley Tramway for its track laying at Chirk station.

The vehicle which left was a small carriage that was originally used at the Centre For Alternative Technology, which is a neighbour of the Corris Railway in the Dulas Valley in Mid Wales. When it became surplus to requirement there it was presented to the Corris Railway. As the Corris Railway has developed it has become surplus to requirements there in turn and has been out of use for a number of years. Even with the 2009 built carriage shed and the recently completed waggon shelter at Maespoeth Junction undercover space is at a premium and it was felt that the CAT Carriage, as it was known, should have a new home. It will be renovated by the Ashton Packet Boat Company by its small group of dedicated volunteers, with the aim of it operating on future charity open days. In 1974 it conveyed the late Duke of Edinburgh, whose Welsh title was Earl of Merioneth, during his visit to the then newly established CAT which at the time had an internal narrow gauge railway.

As for the future passenger carriage stock on the Corris Railway, work on the new build number 24 has seen some internal seating fitted, the roofing fitted to the clerestory roof, external handrails put in place and glazing carried out.

The next arrival that will require accommodation at the Corris Railway will be the new build Falcon locomotive, No. 10, due to arrive later in the operating season. Ahead of this landmark, the first time two steam engines will be permanently resident in the shed since 1948, work has been carried out in the 1883 built loco shed at Maespoeth Junction to improve inspection pit provision and a new flooring area. Debris from this work has been stored for use in the new Southern Extension embankment as and when drier weather allows resumption of work there. The machinery layout in the shed has also been changed and rationalised.

For more Corris Railway information including timetables and advance ticket booking please see www.corris.co.uk

With its winter programme of maintenance completed the Corris Railway will be running its train services over the Easter weekend.

Visitors can enjoy an outing lasting just under an hour with a train ride in each direction between Corris Station and Maespoeth Junction with an opportunity to see behind the scenes at the Junction. Travel is in 21st Century recreations of the original Victorian carriages headed by a steam locomotive. At Corris our Museum and Shop will be open and we can offer drinks, crisps and sweets for a snack. We take payment by card or cash.

Please note your journey must start and end at Corris Station. There is no public access to Maespoeth Junction. The station is in the village reached by turning off the A487 Dolgellau-Machynlleth road at the Braich Goch Inn. Our postcode is SY20 9SH. Tickets can be purchased online in advance and trains will leave Corris at 11.00, 12.00, 1.30, 2.30 and 3.30.

Other things to visit in Corris include the Craft Centre and the family attraction King Arthur’s Labyrinth. The Centre For Alternative Technology is also nearby.