Talyllyn Young Members have completed their ambitious project to replicate a unique railway waggon that had been lost to time.

The Welsh narrow-gauge railway’s Young Members Group launched the project two years ago, announcing that they would be constructing a full replica of the Gunpowder Van that the Railway had once used.

Mantell Gwynedd gave a £5,000 grant to the initiative as part of its Gwynedd Youth Volunteering Grant scheme.

It is believed that the waggon was originally built for the opening of the Railway’s slate traffic in 1864/65. It was used to carry gunpowder from King’s Wharf in Tywyn to the Bryneglwys Quarry above Abergynolwyn for use in slate blasting.

By 1935, the waggon was no longer being used. Its body was separated from its underframe and was used to store sand at Pendre locomotive shed, remaining in this role until the mid-1960s when the rusted waggon was scrapped.

It seems that this was the sole van of this type on the Railway.

Now completed, the replica waggon will help to preserve and illustrate the history of the slate quarry. It is accompanied by three wooden barrels which show how gunpowder was loaded and transported.

More than fifty people volunteered and worked on the project, 37 of whom are part of the Young Members’ Group, which has led the project with support from staff in Pendre works.

Apprentices lent their help, boosting their learning and keeping the project focused on youth.

Although the work recreated a piece of history, it used very modern techniques. This included using Computer-Aided Design (CAD) to translate images from a small number of photographs into a workable design, which was then directly utilised for laser cutting the metal bodywork.

The team built the wooden underframe using techniques as similar to the original construction methods as possible.

The Group has thanked Model Engineers Laser for helping with laser cutting the metal bodywork, and the Ffestiniog Railway’s Carriage Works for allowing them to use woodworking machines to cut the frame timbers down to size.

The van will take part in the Railway’s Heritage event this weekend (Saturday 13 and Sunday 14 September), when it will be hauled by a locomotive and also spend some time on static display outside the original Gunpowder Store at Tywyn Wharf station.

Talyllyn Railway’s next special event will be its Halloween ‘Steam and Scream’.

“An amazing amount of skills were learnt by the YMG to bring this van back to life, skills which
will hopefully be utilised again in the future – with the completion of the Gunpowder Van there
now only remains one pre-preservation waggon type unrepresented on the Railway …
Watch this space!”

Luke Ryan,YMG Chair 2023-2024 & GPV Project Lead