THE BARRY TOURIST RAILWAY

MENTION the name of Barry in South Wales to any railway enthusiast and you can bet a pound to a penny their mind will jump to images ofWoodham Eros' famous scrapyard, with its lines of redundant locomotives quietly awaiting their fate in the salty air emanating from the Bristol Channel.

The role Dai Woodham played in effectively making the preservation movement as we know it possible cannot be understated; suffice to say that through his offices no fewer than 213 steam locomotives have been saved for preservation, 150 of which have since steamed.

What the heritage movement might have looked like without Barry Scrapyard's influence can only be guessed at, but one suspects the number of preserved lines would have been fewer, and those that did exist would be heavily reliant on former industrial steam locos.

Regeneration

Yet the scrapyard is no more, and in the years since it closed Barry has undergone many changes as part of a strategic regeneration project. The sidings where rusting locos once stood are now home to an Asda supermarket. Many historic buildings in the town have been restored and smartened up (including the Hood Road pumping station that features in many scrapyard photos), and an air of prosperity now exists where there was once neglect.

Perhaps most importantly, however, where steam locomotives once went to die they now live again, and just yards from where some locos were cut up, others are being restored back to working order thanks to the Barry Rail Centre and its operational Barry Tourist Railway (BTR).

Yet the BTRis not the first heritage line to have its base in Barry. In 1979, when Woodham's yard was still very active, the Butetown Historic Railway Society accepted a lease offered by Vale of Glamorgan Council (VoGC) on Barry Island station building and platform 4, supported by financial aid from the Welsh Development Agency.

The operation