Welsh Highland Light Railway (1964) Limited
In 1961, a group of enthusiasts formed the Welsh Highland Railway Society with the aim of restoring all or part of the railway. Some of the founders had previously been involved with the Festiniog Railway. Negotiations were started with the liquidator and the local authorities. The former had realised that the best way to be relieved of the liability of the WHR trackbed was to sell it as a single lot. He seems to have responded well to the society and soon came to accept it as a viable would-be purchaser. However, the authorities could not act strategically and were only interested in their own parochial interests.
Advised that it needed a corporate identity to take on the railway's responsibilities, the society formed a limited company. With the permission of the liquidator, they called the new company "Welsh Highland Light Railway (1964) Limited", and Bill Brown became its first chairman. The company became known as "The 64 Co", a term still used by some despite a change of name to WHR Ltd in 1996. Negotiations with the liquidator proved to be somewhat slow, mainly due to delays caused by the liquidator's ill health. Just as a deal seemed close, the liquidator died and the papers passed to the Official Receiver in London. The OR did not go through with the sale to WHLR (1964) Ltd and instead decided to auction the trackbed to the highest bidder. Lacking access to the trackbed, the WHLR (1964) Ltd established a depot on former railway property at Kinnerley in Shropshire and rolling stock was collected there.
Failing to make progress with access to the WHR, in late 1973 WHLR (1964) Ltd purchased from British Rail the "Beddgelert Siding" site in Porthmadog. This was a former standard-gauge spur from the Cambrian Railways which was originally intended as the start of a standard-gauge railway to Beddgelert which did not go ahead. Instead the spur had become an interchange point between the Cambrian Railways and the Croesor Tramway (later part of the WHR). At around the same time as it aquired the Beddgelert siding, in a separate transaction WHLR (1964) Ltd purchased Gelert's Farm, which lay inside the triangle formed by Beddgelert siding, the Cambrian Coast Line and the trackbed of the WHR. By 1980 it had established a depot and workshops and built a short length of line from a station at Porthmadog (WHR) to Pen-y-Mount, running along the course of the Beddgelert siding. It was inspected by Major Olver of the Department of Transport and opened for tourist passenger service on 2nd August 1980 - trading as "The Welsh Highland Railway". The WHLR(1964) Ltd's intention was to extend the railway northwards in stages, up the WHR trackbed towards Beddgelert - once they had managed to gain access.
In 1987, WHR (1964) Ltd completed the restoration of the only surviving steam locomotive owned by the original line, the Hunslet 2-6-2T Russell which had been built in 1906 to the order of the Portmadoc, Beddgelert & South Snowdon Railway and supplied to the North Wales Narrow Gauge Railways. This engine's complex history has been the subject of several books and its survival and return to Wales have made it one of the most famous narrow gauge locomotives in the UK. It was finally rescued for preservation by the Birmingham Locomotive Club in 1955 and was displayed at the Talyllyn Railway before being donated to the WHLR (1964) Ltd in 1965.
WHLR (1964) Ltd changed its company name to "Welsh Highland Railway Ltd" (WHRL)in 1996.
Much later, as mentioned later, a section of the WHR was rebuilt by volunteers from WHRL from Pen y Mount a short distance to Traeth Mawr as the Welsh Highland Railway (Porthmadog) to differentiate this from the WHR (Caernarfon). This section was built along the FR's WHR trackbed and was operated for two seasons before the track was handed over to become part of the WHR line from Caernarfon to Porthmadog. Now that the WHR is indeed complete from Caernarfon to Porthmadog, WHRL trades as the Welsh Highland Heritage Railway.
Read more about this topic: Welsh Highland Railway Restoration
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