Help please - if you can

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Lonsdaler
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Re: Help please - if you can

Post by Lonsdaler » Sat Feb 25, 2023 6:56 pm

Not a definitive answer, but I would say late 70's - my wife had the same hairstyle🫡
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Re: Help please - if you can

Post by ge_rik » Sat Feb 25, 2023 7:45 pm

Lonsdaler wrote: Sat Feb 25, 2023 6:56 pm Not a definitive answer, but I would say late 70's - my wife had the same hairstyle🫡
Nice one! 👍

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SimonWood
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Re: Help please - if you can

Post by SimonWood » Sat Feb 25, 2023 8:45 pm

Seven million by even by the late 70s seems quite impressive!

How about this? A Jeanette Gardiner died in New Zealand aged 52 on 8 September 2010. She would have been 23 either 21 April 1981 or 1982. That’s still a reasonably impressive number of passengers in under 30 years, but certainly fits with the type-written press release.

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Re: Help please - if you can

Post by Lonsdaler » Sun Feb 26, 2023 7:59 am

Well done Simon,
A check of the British Newspaper archive prompted by your search suggests 1983 (she was 25, not 23). However, the publication date is 15th April 1983? :dontknow:
Next question, Mr Bennett? :lol:
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Re: Help please - if you can

Post by ge_rik » Sun Feb 26, 2023 8:56 am

Excellent detective work chaps! The identity of Jack the Ripper next???

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Re: Help please - if you can

Post by SimonWood » Sun Feb 26, 2023 9:45 am

Oops. Misremembered her age despite the extra couple of years suggesting a more plausible date.

Glad you’ve found your answer, Rik. Though I’m now feeling sad that Jeanette, who I’d never heard of a couple of days ago, dies so young and is not around to tell her (great) grandchildren about the day she was given a piece of slate for riding on a little train in Wales.

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Re: Help please - if you can

Post by Lonsdaler » Sun Feb 26, 2023 9:59 am

SimonWood wrote: Sun Feb 26, 2023 9:45 am Oops. Misremembered her age despite the extra couple of years suggesting a more plausible date.

Glad you’ve found your answer, Rik. Though I’m now feeling sad that Jeanette, who I’d never heard of a couple of days ago, dies so young and is not around to tell her (great) grandchildren about the day she was given a piece of slate for riding on a little train in Wales.
I must say I was similarly sad that she'd passed so young.
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Re: Help please - if you can

Post by ge_rik » Mon Feb 27, 2023 7:21 am

She may have died unmarried - assuming Gardiner is her maiden name.
Makes you wonder what was her back story.

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Re: Help please - if you can

Post by ge_rik » Tue Feb 28, 2023 4:00 pm

OK - back to more traditional train spotting fun.
Any ideas? OK, it's a double Fairlie at Porthmadog - but which one and when? I've tried zooming in on the nameplate and searched for similar photos to no avail.
It's clearly in a sorry state so I assume it's prior to preservation days?
NGRS Collection 3 - Ffestiniog Rly - undated - Fairlie 0440 in delapidated state at Harbour Station Porthmadog - unknown source.jpg
NGRS Collection 3 - Ffestiniog Rly - undated - Fairlie 0440 in delapidated state at Harbour Station Porthmadog - unknown source.jpg (441.28 KiB) Viewed 3603 times
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Re: Help please - if you can

Post by philipy » Tue Feb 28, 2023 4:07 pm

I know not a lot, and the Festiniogites amongst us may pour scorn on me, but I believe Merddin Emrys was rebuilt in 1934 and the smokebox plate on your piccy appears to say 1934, so.....?
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"When" is another question of course.

Just found this photo which says it is identifiable by the rivets on the front buffer block, which look to me to be the same as your pic.
http://217.34.233.120:8086/view-item?i= ... 7600865904
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Re: Help please - if you can

Post by ge_rik » Tue Feb 28, 2023 4:54 pm

That would fit with my supposition that it couldn't be Taliesin (the nameplate is too long).
Well spotted and researched, Philip.

Anyone want to add anything?

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Re: Help please - if you can

Post by ge_rik » Tue Feb 28, 2023 5:01 pm

I think it might be when the line was coming up to closure. When the FRPS took over, there were dilapidated coaches and slate wagons parked on the sidings at Harbour Station.

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Re: Help please - if you can

Post by ge_rik » Tue Feb 28, 2023 5:06 pm

This extract from the history of Merddin Emrys lends some weight to Philip's suggestion

In January 1940 it was taken out of traffic for maintenance which took until May to complete. However it was then set to one side and only returned to service in March 1942 when Taliesin needed repairs. From then onwards it was the only double engine in service. When the railway closed, because the closure came so abruptly, literally overnight, the loco had been put into the shed with water in the boiler and tanks and coal in the bunkers, ready for its next turn of duty. The unfortunate results were inevitable and corrosion of the tanks and boiler rendered Merddin Emrys completely unfit for use during the eight years when the railway was closed.

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Re: Help please - if you can

Post by ge_rik » Fri Mar 17, 2023 12:16 pm

Another from the NGRS Ffestiniog Collection.
This one has been catalogued as "Merddin Emrys Taliesin and The Princess at Boston Lodge Works".

That doesn't look like Boston Lodge to me. On the back of the photo in pencil someone has put "WHR?" which makes me wonder if it's Dinas.
Also, If that is a single Fairlie in the middle, wouldn't it have been called Moel Hebog and not Taliesin?

I'd be interested in your thoughts.
NGRS Collection 3 - Ffestiniog Rly - undated poss late 1800s - Locos Merddin Emrys Moel Tryfan Princess at  - RH Bleasdale.jpg
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Re: Help please - if you can

Post by SimonWood » Fri Mar 17, 2023 3:49 pm

To my untrained eye, that looks very much like Boston Lodge, with the mainline on the right there.

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Re: Help please - if you can

Post by ge_rik » Fri Mar 17, 2023 10:22 pm

SimonWood wrote: Fri Mar 17, 2023 3:49 pm To my untrained eye, that looks very much like Boston Lodge, with the mainline on the right there.
I think you could be right. Just found this online

https://www.festrailmedia.co.uk/gallery ... w_YvBGa49c

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Re: Help please - if you can

Post by ge_rik » Sat Mar 18, 2023 7:23 am

This photo is even more persuasive. It shows that engine shd in context
https://www.festrailmedia.co.uk/gallery ... SsHlMplO78

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Re: Help please - if you can

Post by Peter Butler » Wed Nov 01, 2023 5:09 pm

ge_rik wrote: Fri Mar 17, 2023 12:16 pm Another from the NGRS Ffestiniog Collection.
This one has been catalogued as "Merddin Emrys Taliesin and The Princess at Boston Lodge Works".

That doesn't look like Boston Lodge to me. On the back of the photo in pencil someone has put "WHR?" which makes me wonder if it's Dinas.
Also, If that is a single Fairlie in the middle, wouldn't it have been called Moel Hebog and not Taliesin?

I'd be interested in your thoughts.

NGRS Collection 3 - Ffestiniog Rly - undated poss late 1800s - Locos Merddin Emrys Moel Tryfan Princess at - RH Bleasdale.jpg

Rik
Although this is a somewhat delayed reply to your question Rik, I have discovered some useful information in relation to the picture you attached...

According to my copy of 'The Spooner Album' it shows the Running Sheds at Boston Lodge Works with Merddin Emrys, Taliesin and The Princess. The two road stone structure is the oldest part of the shed, built in 1863 for The Princess, Mountaineer, The Prince and Palmerston. The figure on the right is Locomotive Superintendent William Williams.
Robert Williams, who succeeded his unrelated namesake as Works Superintendent is standing on The Princess.
Together with the shed at Dinas Station, where it was the practice to to keep at least one of the England engines and often Taliesin, there was sufficient capacity until the decision to build a third double-bogie engine was taken in 1877. The timber framed, corrugated iron clad extension was built at the same time as the similar Erecting Shop, to accommodate Merddin Emrys and later, Livingston Thompson. This part of the shed was on the original alignment of the railway at this point, superseded in the early 1870's by the cutting to the right of the shed, as the line was improved for locomotives.
At the corner of the shed is the Down disc signal protecting the Works entrance.
Above the figure of William Williams, on the wall of the shed, is the locomotive water tank. Just visible in the distance is William Williams' cottage, No.3 Boston Lodge.
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Re: Help please - if you can

Post by ge_rik » Thu Nov 02, 2023 12:38 pm

Fascinating info, Peter. Thanks.
I do love this forum when all sorts of in depth knowledge like this is plumbed.

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