Season's final diesel day on Llan Railway

* The class 31 loco at Llangollen which is due to leave after the weekend event.

Llangollen Railway’s final diesel running day of the season tomorrow (Saturday) will see three mainline locos and a railcar offering an intensive service on the Dee Valley line.

It is also last day in traffic of the visiting class 31, No. 5580 - an early example of the British Railways modernisation fleet from the late 1950s - before it leaves for the Great Central North at Ruddington..

The class 31 has been at Llangollen for the past two seasons and has made an impression with its early body styling and the unusual two six-wheel bogie arrangement, which is known as an A1A-A1A where the 1 indicates the centre axle is unpowered.

Railway press officer George Jones said: “We are running two diesel-hauled trains to Bonwm, which is believed to be the first time a diesel-hauled passenger train has ever headed West of Carrog, and will allow visitors the chance to see work undertaken so far to extend the line to Corwen.

“We have a visitor on Saturday who will be attending the forthcoming diesel gala along with his friend Stephen Wheeler and, more importantly, his father Colin Wheeler, who spent many years working at the Birmingham Railway Carriage and Wagon works.

“In fact, he went on to write a couple of books about them and also their rivals at Metro Cammel).

“They are planning to travel on the 1pm out of Llangollen so that he can have a ride behind one of his old products that he helped construct, namely D5310 the class 26 locomotive, so the loco will hopefully be reunited with one of the people that helped to build her 54 years ago in 1958.”