Narrow Gauge
ENTHUSIASTS HAD a chance to see inside the Vale of Rheidol Railway’s transformed engine shed at Aberystwyth as part of a ‘soft opening’ on October 31/November 1.
The former Great Western Railway locomotive shed, which closed to steam in April 1965, has served as the VoR’s main engine and rolling stock shed for several decades. However, the shed has been refurbished into a multi-function display space as Phase 3 of the railway’s £2.2 million ‘Wales to the World’ redevelopment project – a wide-ranging scheme to transform the VoR’s Aberystwyth terminus, including the provision of a new, purpose-built, three-road rolling stock shed (SR512), a new GWR ‘pagoda’ style station building, and a new, Great Western-style, brick-built booking office.
The former standard gauge locomotive shed has been carefully renovated; following the removal of the old track, the interior brickwork was sand-blasted and the steel roof trusses repainted. Part of the southern wall has been removed and replaced with large windows to increase natural light inside the building, while the stonework that once surrounded the entrance to the South Eastern Railway’s offices on Tooley Street, London – recovered from the former London Bridge station redevelopment a decade ago – has been incorporated into the exterior. The new end-grain wooden block floor, which incorporates three tracks, including a section of dual gauge track, has been chosen to replicate a traditional railway works floor.
The shed is expected to display some locomotives from ‘Collection X’; for the ‘soft opening’, however, exhibits on display included the VoR’s resident Swindon-built 2 ‐ 6‐2T No. 1213, ‘NG/G13’ Hanomag-built BeyerGarratt No. 60 Drakensburg, ‘Quarry Hunslet’ 0 ‐ 4‐0ST Works No. 605 Margaret, Kerr, Stua
