Look who’s back!
Dougal has returned to his Welshpool home following an epic seven-month adventure that involved an 8,000-mile round trip to win a new army of fans in Taiwan.
Built in 1946 for a gasworks in Glasgow, the Andrew Barclay 0-4-0T has been resident on the Llanfair Line since 1967, but has been on his travels following an invitation to be the star guest at the signing of a ‘Sister Railway’ co-operation agreement between the W&LLR and the Taiwan Sugar Corporation (TSC).
TSC once owned more than 40 sugar mills around Taiwan, but as sugar production has declined the corporation has diversified into other areas, and now operates five short heritage railways at former mills that it owns.
Under the agreement the W&LLR is making its knowledge and experience gained in more than 50 years of tourist railway operation available to TSC. The return benefits include technical assistance, particularly in the maintenance of the W&LLR’s Diema diesel locomotive that was purchased from TSC in 2004, and cross-level tourist promotion – the UK and especially Wales are becoming increasingly attractive destinations for travellers from the Far East, and vice-versa.
TSC fully funded the shipping of Dougal to Taiwan for the signing ceremony on December 8 in the city of Chiayi. This formed part of the launch of the corporation’s annual Sugar Festival, which took the theme of ‘Taiwan and British Railway Culture Exchange’.
Large crowds attended the event, while the presence of Dougal and the signing ceremony, between W&LLR company secretary Michael Reilly and TSC chairman Charles Huang, resulted in extensive coverage by the Taiwan media, including several reports broadcast on national TV news.
Dougal then stayed on in Taiwan and was decorated for Christmas, while its final event before returning home was to take part in the Lantern Festival, an important celebration in the Pacific nation. For this, a group of local supporters crowdfunded the making of a special Welsh Dragon lantern for the locomotive to carry, and have since donated the lantern to the W&LLR, sending it home with Dougal.
Dougal was able to be steamed, at reduced pressure, for demonstration purposes in Taiwan. But significant boiler work is required to the locomotive and currently the W&LLR cannot allocate resources, both in terms of funding and volunteer time, to carry out the repairs – particularly as Dougal is too small to haul passenger trains on the steeply graded and challenging route of the mid-Wales line.
Therefore, he has returned to his position in the railway’s display shed at Welshpool Raven Square station.
Panels will be produced to tell the story of Dougal’s Far East adventure, and eventually the lantern will be included in a full display documenting the railway’s many global connections in a new visitor centre being created at Llanfair Caereinion station.
W&LLR marketing and publicity director Andrew Charman, who with Michael Reilly attended the Sugar Festival in December as the guests of TSC, described the visit of Dougal as a major success.
“We have gained global recognition for our railway while making a host of new and valued friends in Taiwan,” Andrew said.
“TSC has obviously taken the greatest of care of our little locomotive. It has been returned to us in pristine condition, and will certainly impress visitors to our display shed at Raven Square until such time as we can allocate the resources to return Dougal to steam.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|