Edward Thomas Celebrates its Centenary Edward Thomas was built by Kerr, Stuart & Co Ltd at their California Works in Stoke-onTrent for the Corris Railway, as engine No 4047 of the Tattoo Class in 1921. It is an 0-4-2ST saddle tank built to the 2ft 3in gauge. with 2ft 0in driving wheels and 1ft 4in training wheels and a boiler pressure of 160lbf/in2.
Corris Railway
The Corris Railway was a 2 ft 3 in (686 mm) gauge horse-drawn tramway built in 1859 under the name of the Corris, Machynlleth & River Dovey Tramroad. A title which, fortunately was shortened by an Act of 1864, followed by a further Act which authorised the purchase of locomotives. The railway was of the same gauge as the tramway, which consisted of a mainline from Machynlleth north to Corris and on to Aberllefenni, a distance of about six and a half miles to which quarry branches from Maespoeth (just suth of Corris) to Upper Corris and up the valley beyond Aberlefeni added another four and a half miles. A passenger service was introduced on the 4th July 1883 between Machynlleth and Corris and on 25th August 1887 extended from there to Aberllefeni. The railway company owned three locomotives, built in 1878; by the end of World War I all three were in poor condition, and the railway ordered a fourth, a modified version of Kerr Stuart›s 0-4-2 ST «Tattoo» class, in 1921.[1] It initially struggled with the workload on the Corris and was provided with a new boiler with a greater number of tubes in 1928. The Corris Railway was taken over, as part of the Crossville Motor Services Ltd, by the Great Western Railway in 1930, after which duties were shared between No.4 and the surviving original loco, No. 3.However, passenger services were withdrawn as from the 1st January 1931. By late 1947 No. 4 was out of service needing a major overhaul, and as a result never worked under British Railways following nationalisation in 1948, as the Corris closed on 20 August that year.
Cambell Thomas and Oliver Veltom
Mr Campbell Thomas was the GWR and BR Stationmaster at Machynlleth. One of his responsibilities was running the former Corris Railway which ran from the lower yard at Machynlleth to Corris and Aberlefenni serving the slate quarries. Mr Campbell Thomas was very fond of the Corris Railway which had been under threat of closure. Trains on the line ran three days per week and sometimes did not run according to the then working timetable but to suit Campbell Thomas`s fishing requirements. Thanks to his efforts and
WESTERN STAR MAGAZINE
Nos 3 & 4 behind the Corris Station at Machynlleth
that of Sir Haydn Jones and Edward Thomas of the Talyllyn Railway, they kept the Corris Railway going and saved it from closure enabling it to survive under the British Railways era. Writer George Behrend author of the classic book ‘Gone With Regret’ read in the ‘County Times’ newspaper at the beginning of August 1948 that the Corris Railway had closed. He had wanted to see the line in action, so he decided to go to see the remains of the line before it disappeared for ever. Accordingly, he journeyed to Machynlleth. When he got there, he was so pleased to find the line had not yet closed and Mr Campbell Thomas invited him for a trip along the line behind locomotive No.3. Although not known at the time, it was to be the penultimate working of the Corris as, unfortunately, flooding from the River Dovey was undermining the railway embankment. The driver was Mr Humphrey Humphreys and the guard Mr Pryce Owen both of whom had given many years of service to the railway. George had a wonderful trip returning on the footplate of No.3 His abiding memory of the day was that he drank beer in the Slater`s Arms with the driver and guard of the Corris! Sadly, the line closed on 20th August 1948 as the flooding did its worst. Mr Cambell Thomas was a visionary. He knew the two Corris Railway locomotives Nos 3 and 4 were of the same unusual gauge as the nearby Talyllyn Railway so he stored them in the lower goods yard putting tarpaulins over them and placing standard gauge wagons in front of them so they would be hidden from prying eyes. It was his hope they would eventually go to the Talyllyn Railway, which at the time was on its last legs and needing another locomotive. At a time of a national scrap drive, he accidentally ignored instructions from Swindon to send the locomotives for scrap. Spring 2021
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