Steam railway gearing up to open for fresh season from this weekend

Steam locomotive whistles will be sounding in the Banwy Valley again from this weekend as the Welshpool & Llanfair Light Railway (W&LLR) opens up for its 2025 operating season, playing its part in a year of celebration for the UK’s railways as a whole.

The year of 2025 marks the 200th since the opening of the world’s first public railway, the Stockton & Darlington, and both main line and heritage railways across the UK will be celebrating the milestone throughout the year.

The W&LLR joined many other lines at the start of 2025 in a ‘whistle-up’ to kick off Railway 200, and also to launch an appeal to help celebrate a forthcoming personal milestone for the Mid Wales line.

In 2027 the line’s two original locomotives, ‘The Earl’ and ‘The Countess’ will celebrate their 125th birthdays, but while The Earl is available for service The Countess is in the early stages of a mandatory major overhaul.

The railway is raising £150,000 to fund the overhaul and has seen an excellent response to its appeal, with half of the funding required already donated. 

This has enabled work on the overhaul to get properly underway over the winter, with the aim of ensuring both locos are in service to celebrate their big birthdays in two years’ time.

Details of the appeal can be found online.

Work on The Countess formed just one part of a great deal of ‘behind the scenes’ maintenance carried out by the W&LLR’s mainly volunteer workforce over the winter.

As well as the work that is always required to locomotives, rolling stock, trackwork and its surroundings, the team faced an extra challenge when heavy rain on November 23 caused a minor landslip adjacent to the line on the Golfa Bank two miles outside Welshpool.

While the track was not directly affected, it was clear that work needed to be carried out to ensure there would be no future issues.

Over the winter a £16,000 project to build a new protective wall was drawn up and carried out effectively by the railway’s track gang, with additional help from other volunteers and staff.

The railway said it is very grateful to the many members who rose to the challenge of ensuring the project was successfully carried out. 

Trains will operate on the W&LLR every weekend, and also on every day over the Easter holidays, between 12th and 27th April, until 7th May when services extend to Wednesdays and Thursdays. At Llanfair Caereinion the tearoom has been refurbished over the winter and will be serving breakfast, lunches, snacks and drinks on all days that the railway is open and also on Wednesdays to Fridays.

More details of train services and pre-booking ticket facilities can be found at www.wllr.org.uk or by calling 01938 810441.