This is one of the Great Little Trains of Wales, and was the last steam railway owned by British Rail until it was privatised in 1989.
Opened in 1902, it was originally built to serve the lead mines in the Rheidol Valley. Passengers and timber also formed the mainstay of traffic on the route which passes through some of the most rugged terrain of any railway in the United Kingdom.
Despite the narrow gauge of the rails, the locomotives and carriages - built at the Great Western Railway's Swindon Works - are as wide as their standard gauge equivalents. 82060717
2019 RBC Solutions | Toronto, Canada | photographed: 1982 June
