Its astonishing to me that not only is the first garratt type ever built still in existance, but its kept in working order, and on the other wide of the world to where it was first operated! Fantastic stuff, love this footage, narrow gauge always has a certain charm and allure to it that standard gauge can't quite capture for me.
K1/K2 she stood in Boston Lodge all through my adolescence. We tried to imagine her running and that she was too big for the FR. She is a BBL big beautiful locomotive, in a petite sort of way. Great to see her so purposefully restored. And NOW THE ALCO! That evocative WW1 engine that was the mainstay of FR in the 70's.
It's a policy carried over from the Ffestiniog. When they were running gravity slate trains down to Porthmadog from the quarries, they had to take the right hand side of the loops at Tan-y-Bwlch, since that side was on a gentler curve than the left and therefore reduced the chance of high-speed derailment, and at Minffordd where the transfer yard with the Aberystwyth and Welsh Coast Railway (later Cambrian Railways) branched off to the right of the main line.
