Boston Lodge

The Boston Lodge Works are the main workshops of the Ffestiniog Railway ( FR) in the Welsh county of Gwynedd. They not only serve the maintenance and restoration of existing vehicles, but since 1879 even the occasional construction of steam locomotives - the last to date was completed in 2010.

Location

The workshops are located about 1.6 km south east of Porthmadog at the end of "The Cob ", the final dike of Traeth Mawr.

The main route of the Ffestiniog Railway runs through this dike and turns in the workshops of about 90 ° to the northeast. Located on the outside of this curve factory premises has two entry tracks, one of which coming from the north, however, has no significant meaning.

The plant is located on the A487; However, the access for lorries is impossible very cumbersome and for low-loader because of the elevated position of this to be crossed railway line, so must be placed on the street or Delivered rail vehicles usually in the near Minffordd or at the train station in Porthmadog.

Within the site are out of the workshops and roundhouse, Lokbehandlungsanlagen, a hall for shelter of passenger cars as well as residential buildings for employees of the railway.

History

Originally there was on the site of a quarry made ​​for the 1808-1811 dike ( the degradation edge is still visible directly behind the buildings ). During this time, here there were also workshops, forging, accommodation for the workers as well as horse stables.

The name is derived from Boston Lodge Boston ( Lincolnshire ), the city for which William Madocks, the initiator of the dikes, sat in Parliament.

After the founding of the Ffestiniog Railway in 1832 the stables were reused for the horses of the railway. As of 1847, workshops for the maintenance of rail vehicles emerged, and over time developed in parallel with the technical development of the existing railway systems today. 1863 took the FR, the first steam locomotive in operation; 1879 was built with the Double Fairlie Merddin Emrys own first locomotive.

During the First World War munitions were manufactured in the Boston Lodge Works. Between 1947 and 1954, was the work, like the Ffestiniog Railway itself closed. The plants were kept and could be used after re-starting.

Produced Vehicles

A total of six steam locomotives were built in the Boston Lodge Works, four of them in the " preservation era ," the period following the conversion of the FR in a museum railway. All locomotives have a track width of 597 or 600 mm.

• The Double Fairlie Merddin Emrys (1879 ), Livingston Thompson ( 1886), Earl of Merioneth (1979) and David Lloyd George (1992 )
• The Single Fairlie Taliesin (1999 ), a replica of a locomotive of the same name from 1876
• Lyd (2010 ), a replica of a locomotive of the Lynton and Barnstaple Railway

Boston Lodge is now also the world's only private railway main workshop, which has built in three centuries even steam locomotives. More locomotives were substantially rebuilt or restored from the ground up; were among the Garratt locomotives of the Welsh Highland Railway ( SAR NGG 16 Class and the K1) in addition to the locomotives of the FR.

Most currently used passenger cars of the FR and the WHR have emerged in the Boston Lodge Works. Only the frame and bogies comes in part from older cars or manufactured by other (metal ) companies; Woodwork, paneling, interior design, technical equipment and painting done in the Boston Lodge Works.

Even orders from other paths will be assumed for the first time in 1977 with the conversion of a locomotive of the Vale of Rheidol Railway to oil firing. Three cars of the Welshpool and Llanfair Light Railway, where they are replicas of the original cars of this train, also from the Boston Lodge Works.