The pot of gold...

It's a Sunday morning as you stride out in the hills above the small Welsh village of Glyndyfrdwy, up the old cart road towards Moel Fferna, nestled in the northern fringes of the Berwyn hills...

The treasure, the pot of gold we're looking for? The last internal combustion powered motive power of the former Dyfrdwy Tramway, a Ruston LB used by the company between the old slab quarry and the cutting mill. This survivor, almost a reverse anachronism in a world of wooden framed slab wagons and former plate way trackbed could be found out in the open for the intrepid explorer, willing to brave the elements and the stiff walk! On this occasion, blessed with fine weather on a quiet April morning we find the prize parked up at the slab quarry, dirty but cared for, a hard working and respected machine by the hard working and respected men who still scrape a living out of this dying profession. Captured on film forever, we beat a retreat to catch the Number 5 bus back to Ruabon and our train home...

This Ruston LB is a 7/8ths to the inch (1/13.7) scale model posed on my own 32mm gauge Dyfrdwy Tramway in the garden here in North Wales, inspired by the real Deeside Tramway that operated from the village to the Deeside Slab quarry and beyond to Moel Fferna. Somehow the garden brings a railway to life and in the sharply contrasted photo in the low sun of an April morning, you could almost be on the hillside high above the village and Dee Valley, capturing your own photo of a disappearing relic. Until next time, more soon…

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