Welshpool Light Railway - by Adam Cusack
Camera club trip from Welshpool to Llanfair on the light railway – why not, it’s been on our doorstep for years. What could we photograph though, would it be of interest to our members?
A phone call to the station and I’m in contact with Kevin Haywood, a very nice and obliging chap, he is really keen for us to visit them and suggests all sorts of situations that would be of interest to a camera club – including a tour of the workshops.
Well, that does it for me, I love taking photos of tools, bits of metal and machines. Once the emails have gone out, I start to get a few returns – enough to suggest to me that a day trip would prove worthwhile. A date is set and soon arrives – almost faster than a speeding train, how the months fly by these days! I also managed to persuade my son James to come along and blow the dust of his Pentax K10 camera.
Nine members turn up on a sunny Sunday morning and we gather outside the station catching up on what we have been up to since we last met and wondering what the day holds in store. 11:15 our train is due to leave and we are eventually met by the station master and shown to our carriage – they even put up a reserved sign for the Welshpool Camera Club on the carriage, a lovely touch which made us feel very important.
With the Sun shining and a fair wind, we head off for Llanfair. The weather is great and the air is filled with the smell of summer, coal and steam.
A few members grab cameras and lean out of windows and over the sides. James tries taking a 
few shots of the track as we roll over it; he wants to get a feeling of speed and can’t seem to get the right shot – ah, I know all about that, Plains Rally just a few months back had me delving into camera settings to get that right. ‘Camera onto Shutter Priority and lower the exposure to around 1/60th’. James tries that but still not right so he lowers the shutter more and finally nails it at 1/30th.
The route takes us through rolling countryside, lush fields and Victorian farms. We arrive at Llanfair and gather ourselves. We are then greeted by David who will be our guide around this section and workshops. I am looking forward to this bit as it is evident from the quality of the workmanship on the carriage we arrived on that there is a lot of skill and craftsmanship involved in running this line and it will be interesting to see how this is done.
We enter the main workshop area and are greeted with the wonderful smell of oil and a great big steam engine being lovingly restored.
The workshop is brightly lit and on one side work benches, a track in the middle and various 
welding kit - gas bottles and assortments on the other side. A volunteer is busily filing away at a piece of metal while his workmate is perched halfway up the engine tightening bolts I’ve never seen the size off before! This engine was shipped in from abroad a few years back and disassembled and was now in the process of being reassembled ready for use. We are allowed to wonder freely around the engine and as a result of the amount of internal light, there was not much need for flash, a high ISO of around 800 allowed me some good exposures at 1/125th.
We move onto the rear workshop and find two volunteers working; one was cutting out shapes from a piece of lead sheet. The other, drilling a hole using what can only be described as the mother of all drills. This was being operated by a young man who is currently studying engineering at Coleg Powys. Volunteering here for this chap has huge benefits for his career and as we discussed, put him above all the rest when it came to experience and time on the ‘tools’.
The rear room was the main machine room where any parts that could not be bought, were made, as well as improving old designs and knocking up templates for new parts. Once we had captured all we could, we agree to break for lunch, so off to the café for a quick break, before being shown round the carriage workshop.
This gave us a chance to review what we had achieved so far, try out the home made cakes and also discuss future activities for the club……some big ideas there, hope it’s not me having to organise trips abroad! We gather again in readiness for a tour of the carriage workshops and David takes us for a short walk down the track.
We arrive and are free to roam around and take pictures of just 
about anything. Some of the carriages are so well restored; the quality of the workmanship is staggering. Oak and brass go so well together as does all other manner of metal on wood including Elm, Pine & Beech. The workmanship in these carriages – I don’t think I could capture on camera, you have to be in there to see, touch and smell to fully appreciate it.
Well, it’s time to head back to the station but before we do a quick tour of the signal box and its workings. Wow – key locking levers and finely tuned wires make for a complicated setup. Everything is manually driven and carefully designed to ensure when one signal is activated, a corresponding one is de-activated, clever stuff for a time when sensors and electronics had no part to play.
Well, as we rejoin our carriage and head back to Welshpool I think 
back to when we first arrived at the station in the morning. Our journey and our means of getting there is all done through the hard work and dedication of volunteers who give up their time because of the love of trains and all the different disciplines needed to run such a project, from maintaining the lines, clearing trees, looking after passengers, running a café, designing and making parts, woodwork, brass and copper fittings, cutting and welding metals, fundraising, grants and a whole host of other things I did not get time to fully appreciate.
This is what getting together people with a common interest can achieve. I thought crosses my mind that in fact, the camera club is not that different in its aims albeit on a smaller scale.
Our thanks go to Kevin Haywood and all the staff at the WELSHPOOL & LLANFAIR LIGHT RAILWAY for looking after us and allowing us the opportunity to access ‘all areas’ making for a great day out and enjoyed by all.
