Firedrake files No.10 - Dorothea
This little engine nearly rusted away entirely. For nearly 30 years it lay in its shed at Dorothea Quarry in North Wales with parts being taken to keep other engines running. Gradually the shed collapsed around it but in 1970 it was rescued by enthusiast Dave Walker. Dorothea remained in storage until 1989 when Kate Bowman took pity on it. Her husband had already done that with other quarry Hunslets, such as Covertcoat from Dinorwic and Lillian from Port Penryhn but even he did not share her enthusiasm for the task ahead and everyone else thought it was too far gone to be restored
There's a brilliant picture of it in the cafe at the steam railway. As it's in colour you can see how rusty it was after 30 years in the open with the rubble of its shed around it.
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| Dorothea under restoration in July 2009 |
Regular readers may remember that last year I went to the Dorothea quarry. This was to see a Cornish engine in Wales, rather than a Welsh engine in Cornwall, and it's curious to note that the Dorothea Quarry was originally called the Cornwall Quarry.
The Dorothea Quarry is a fascinating site. J I C Boyd wrote about the quarry railways in Volume 1 of his North Wales Narrow Gauge books but, although they are obviously written by an enthusiast, I find his works curiously impenetrable. Maybe it's their layout.
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| This de Winton engine would be right at home with Dorothea. I spotted it whilst riding the Welsh Highland Railway (where it's too small to join in) |
The 3' 6" Nantlle Railway was incorporated in 1825 to take the slates up to Carnarvon and was absorbed into the LNWR in 1879. Most of it was converted to standard gauge later but beyond Talysarn, where transhipment exchange sidings existed, the 3' 6" line continued to be worked with horses up into the 1960s. Within the quarries themselves was a further system of 1' 11½ " where the first of several vertical boilered de Winton engines appeared in around 1869. Apparently, de Winton, a firm based in Carnarvon, also built the winding engines in the quarries.
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| By September 2009 a replica cab was nearly ready |
The locomotive Dorothea was built in 1901 (works no. 763) but was dormant in its shed by 1939 and Boyd records that parts were being sold off after that.
Another steam engine called Wendy lay dormant in similar circumstances until the 1960s when that, too, was rescued. This was a Bagnall (works no. 2091 of 1919). Boyd notes that the Bagnall was acquired in a pile of scrap in 1930 from Votty Quarry at Blaneau Festiniog but had only worked until 1922.
It's thanks to Boyd that this snippet has been captured for posterity.
By 1935 it was back in use but after WW2 it fell dormant again. The workings changed dramatically over the years. Rails were laid where they were needed in the changing landscape of the quarries and after the demise of steam horses saw the system out until 1961 when lorries replaced the railway.
The BR Nantlle Valley section from Pen-y-Groes to Talysarn was closed in 1963 and the track lifted by the end of 1965. Wendy was rescued about this time and shortly afterwards off went Dorothea, too. Obviously the Cornish engine remained but even that was adopted by a band of volunteers who camped nearby and got it going again on compressed air.
I had a good old poke around the Dorothea Quarry but, instead of finding it inspiring like I do old Cornish tin workings, it seemed a depressing place. It sits just outside Snowdon National Park and is off the tourist trials. I felt there was a sense of lost opportunity about the place, which has so much potential. There is the diving centre but a high number of recreational divers have died there giving it a bad reputation and occasional threats of closure. The Cornish engine is barricaded up against vandals and thieves for the happy band of youthful volunteers all grew up, settled down to married life and their preservation efforts ran out of steam as well as compressed air.
The weather didn't help. I was during one of the wettest and gloomiest holidays that I can remember. Actually, as I was camping in Mighty Whitey it was the wettest ever and the smell of damp took weeks to get out of my coat. It was that week in June where campers in Wales had to be airlifted to safety so I suppose I got away lightly.
I found no element of benign neglect. The Dorothea Quarry was quiet but disquieting. There was evidence of vandalism, I had a sense of the old quarry villages being an unemployment blackspot instead of a tourist friendly community and in researching my visit on the web I learned that parts of the Cornish engine had recently been stolen. Access is difficult and the site needs treating with respect even away from flooded areas. Some dog walkers told me of youngsters being trapped among the ruins and having to be rescued. Maybe that was an important lesson for them in our risk averse society.
But in the spirit of maximising the positive, let's fantasize about what could be done here.
For starters, this what it looked like backalong. Purty weren't it?
The volunteers behind the Welsh Highland must be looking for a fresh challenge. Those young bloods who got the Cornish engine to nod its beam back in the seventies are now retired and their preservation activities need not run out of steam - or comprssed air - a second time. The slate walls and architectural niceties remind me of John T Kenney's illustrations for the Rev Awdry's Gallant Old Engines for there's such beauty and pride in even the simplest buildings here. Those aerial cable ways could be modernised into cable cars for tourists. Local people could benefit from new jobs. A narrow gauge railway could be laid out in the quarries for further sight seeing opportunities. Engines from the other great little trains of Wales could visit. Wendy could come up from the Hampshire Narrow Gauge Railway Trust and Chaloner could visit from the Leighton Buzzard Railway.
And one day Dorothea the engine could one day return to Dorothea the quarry.
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| Can't you see a little steam engine sweeping into view? |
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