Little wonders for over 150 years

NORTH Wales – land of mountains, castles and song, high hats and spinning wheels, Victorian slate workings whose gigantic remains challenge the imagination, and of course the delightful double Fairlie locomotives of the Ffestiniog Railway which, to the unknowledgeable for more than a 150 years, have never seemed to know whether they are coming or going!

Writing off Glasgow-born Robert Francis Fairlie’s patented locomotive design as a mere curiosity, or the subject of such a lame joke, however, would be a profound misjudgement, because the FR’s 1ft 11½in (597mm) gauge double Fairlies have always been worth more than their weight in gold to the railway that made them famous throughout the world.

History records that these brilliant little locomotives – the first FR example being No. 7 Little Wonder, designed and built by George England & Company and delivered to the railway in 1869 – saved the railway the great cost of doubling its track in order to accommodate a growing number of shorter trains.

The clear advantages of such locomotives were that, with every