Based at Oswestry, the Cambrian Railways provided the bulk of railway transport in an area of land that stretched from west Shropshire to the Welsh coast between Aberystwyth and Pwlheli.
Although the company lost its independence to the Great Western Railway in 1922 – before the creation of the ‘Big Four’ the following year – the lines retained a distinct identity through the GWR and BR eras, right up until the end of steam and beyond.
Whilst certain routes – most notably those from Whitchurch to Welshpool and from Moat Lane Junction to Three Cocks Junction – were closed during the 1960s, the key route to the west remains open. Famous as the route of the ‘Cambrian Coast Express’, the line from Welshpool through to Machynlleth and Dovey Junction and then south to Aberystwyth or north to Pwllheli is now regarded as one of the most scenic in the country.
Drawing upon a superb range of photographs, this book explores the Cambrian lines in the two decades after the end of World War 2. These were the years when the outside-framed ‘Dukedog’ class 4-4-0s worked out their final years and when the transition from Western to London Midland control saw many of the traditional classes disappear.
