The Narrow Gauge Railway Museum

Wharf station before the first museum building. The lock up coal yard which formed the lower part of the first museum building can be seen between the station building and the main line railway.

When the Talyllyn Railway Preservation Society was formed in 1950 to rescue the near derelict railway some members were also acutely aware that narrow gauge railways in general were fast becoming obsolete. A group of members started to collect remnants of other narrow gauge lines for posterity and a sub committee of the Society was set up to administer this new collection. The first locomotive to be secured was Guinness Brewery No. 13, built in 1895. In the early 1950’s these locomotives were replaced by diesels, and the railway secured the donation of the locomotive and its eventual delivery from Dublin to Tywyn. However its arrival was preceded by Russell, which had started life on the North Wales Narrow Gauge Railway, and last worked on Fayle’s Tramway, an industrial line in Dorset. The property of the Birmingham Locomotive Society, it was stored at Tywyn for a number of years before being moved and ultimately returned to service on the rebuilt Welsh Highland Railway (Porthmadog).
With a rapidly growing collection of locomotives and many smaller exhibits, covered accommodation was needed. A small slate built building at Tywyn Wharf, originally used to store gunpowder for Bryn Eglwys Quarries, was utilised. The next locomotive to arrive was the vertical boilered George Henry, built in 1877 for Penrhyn Quarry, the largest of the North Wales slate quarries.

Next page The Original Building