Brilliant footage, the engine driver was Mr Herbie Loader, and his helper was his son Mr Nelson Loader, as I was taken on that peckett when I was about eight years old by my father, Malcolm Denning. The memories are still vivid even today.
Lived in Trowbridge at the time and bunked off school to see this, footplated this engine up to the incline, very nice driver let me take the regulator back to the colliery , very bumpy track..!! That was a real eduction and pleased I did it....
This is priceless footage; fantastic. Thank you for posting this. I spent many happy hours/days at Kilmerdon as a schoolboy riding on the loco. Then as a student I used to drive to Mountain Ash to ride and photograph the locos working there. It is brilliant to see this film.
Thankyou, yeojohn! I just wished I'd had more money to buy and shoot a lot more cine film at the time. (I too was a student when these scenes were taken). The Kilmersdon operation was a gem. So friendly the guys there too.
This is indeed great footage of a bygone time still its called progress after all who needs Coal? oh yes to have supermarkets and huge carparks It is good to know that many of these old locos are in preservation Thanks you for this clip the many times I went to S Wales all I saw was the deserted lines and old pit heads Though I do remember some of it as went there couple of time in the 1950's Thanks again
fabulous stuff. Had I known that these were still operating in the early 70's I would have made more of a nuisance of myself to get taken there by parents. Its probably all under supermarkets now.
My grandfather used to drive the Peckett at Kilmerston, although I don't think he's in this film. Many a Saturday was spent on the footplate. I remember the watching the pit wheels spinning from my grandparents house in Haydon and being showing around the pit. I went to see her again a few years back at Washford. Happy days!
I have a slide of a green tank at Mountain Ash in the late 1960s / early 1970s Also 9600 at Merthyr Vale colliery . When did these two mines shut please ? Stanley
The other locomotive in the Mountain Ash sequence is NOT Sir Gomer. It is 'Sir John', maybe with the name plates from 'Gomer. I don't remember which builder 'Sir John' was from: It is either Avonside or Fox Walker who was the predecessor of Peckett. The lore around Mountain Ash was that Sir John had a collision at Deep Duffryn and lost it's original chimney. It was replaced by what looks like a length of steel gas main
"a length of steel gas main"😄Great times. I guess they would just fit whatever did the job. And they would have had a workshop where an old chap with glasses could fabricate and weld anything.
You know the loco from Kilsmerdon is alive and well cared for at Washford on the West Somerset Railway. I's beautifully restored and shunts up and down the yard there.Given the choice however, I would rather see it dirty, oily and in proper 'working' condition.
The Pannier Tank 7754 previously worked at Talywain. It hauled Paddy Trains for the miners and at least one enthusiasts special when it regained the smokebox number. 7754 was really not suitable for the environment of Mountain Ash. Too heavy for their track, some of which was extremely poor indeed in outlying parts of the system.
This is indeed great footage of a bygone time still its called progress after all who needs Coal? oh yes to have supermarkets ans huge carparks It is good to know that many of these old locos are in preservation Thanks you for this clip the many times I went to S Wales all I saw was the deserted lines and old pit heads Though I do remember some of it as went there couple of time in the 1950's Thanks again
