TWO PANNIER TANKS TO BRYMBO
The phone rang – as it did in those days – “personal call for Mr Anderson” yelled out the telephone attendant from the adjoining lobby. Damn, I thought, as we weren’t supposed to receive such calls. It was Dave Hartley who I had come to know in the late 1950s/early 1960s through his organisational skills in arranging coach trips to engine sheds and works, when in one day we would note over 1,000 steam locomotives.
“Did I fancy a trip out to Brymbo on a Sunday in August?” he asked. “Where the heck’s Brymbo?” was my reply. “It’s a steelworks up in the hills above Wrexham and there’s two Great Western tanks going up there with a special. Supposed to be the first passenger train up there on that line for about 30 years.” (I later learned he was right as the line had lost its passenger service in 1930, although for a few years later, one or two auto-train pigeon specials had been run. Now how about that. Only the Welsh could do such things).
Boy oh boy, yes I was interested! I had no photographs whatsoever in the Wrexham area. In fact, that whole area of north east Wales was a blank on my photographic map. On top of that, non-preserved or BR-owned GWR standard gauge locomotives in steam were decidedly rare by now as the Western Region had been the first to abandon regular
