THE LAST scrap locomotive left Barry to be rebuilt at Llangollen Railway Workshops last week.
Ex-Great Western Railway (GWR) 2-8-0 steam locomotive number 2861 left Barry for the Llangollen Railway Workshops on a huge articulated road trailer on Monday (May 6).
John Buxton, Director of Barry Tourist Railway, said that the locomotive had been in Barry since 1963.
"Its going to Llangollen where they are going to restore the components to make a design similar to that based on larger driving wheels," he said.
He added that the work was set to take about eight years.
"It's a big job," he said.
"Most of the parts will be reused.
"We have an agreement that it will return to Barry on occasions so that we can display it and hopefully use it.
"It's just a wreck at the moment, but when it's completed it will be a fully restored engine."
He added: "We are pleased that someone has taken on the work to restore a working steam engine. It would be beyond our resources to do that."
Although Barry Scrapyard closed for business twenty three years ago and most of the remaining steam locomotives left for preservation by that time, ten locomotives stayed in the Barry and Cardiff area until recently. This group of steam engines became known as the Barry Ten and have latterly been kept at the Barry Tourist Railway Main Depot near Barry Station.
Over the last few years, promising futures for this collection of locomotives have been found, and as a result, many are currently being transformed into different types that have been long extinct since the modernisation of the railways in the 1950's and 1960's.
This has been possible by combining components from these old locomotives with the fabrication of new parts, such as mainframes, enabling several iconic types to be recreated, including the famous ex-GWR County of Glamorgan express locomotive.
Components from loco No 2861, which has left Barry, are similarly to be used to help create a similar but larger-wheeled 2-8-0 tender locomotive type that became extinct in 1964.
These were known as the 'Night Owls'. Numbered in the 4700 series these powerful locomotives worked mainly at night hauling fast parcels and freight trains.
On completion, this newly recreated locomotive will be one of the largest and most impressive locomotives in the Great Western Society's collection.