Llangollen Railway Trust are celebrating both the 200 anniversary and the Trust’s own 50th birthday with a series of talks.
15 March 2025
John Violet – ‘Thomas Brassey – “the greatest railway builder in the world”
Our first speaker in our Pioneering Engineering series is John Violet from the Thomas Brassey Society. Peter will be talking about Thomas Brassey who was born a few miles south of Chester in 1805. Brassey’s career began as a trainee surveyor on Thomas Telford’s Shrewsbury to Holyhead road through North Wales. He learned a lot about civil engineering, became a quarry manager on the Wirral and then set up his own business as a railway contractor. Brassey was at the forefront of ‘railway mania’, building one third of all the railways in this country during his lifetime, including the line through Llangollen. He built railways all over the world, on almost every continent and, at the height of his career, employed an estimated 85,000 men in his global workforce.
12 April 2025
Dave Waldren – ‘The early days on and around the Llangollen Railway’.
Our second speaker in our Pioneering Engineering series is Dave Waldren from the Welsh Highland Railway Society. Dave enjoyed frequent visits to his Aunt’s house in Bridge Street in Llangollen from the 1970s onwards, so was able to observe the very start of the preservation efforts at Llangollen station. Delving into his extensive collection of original photographs, Dave will showcase some of the early days on and around the Llangollen Railway.
10 May 2025
Peter Dickinson – ‘Thunder & Smoke – The Arrival of the Railway into Llangollen”
Following on from Dave Waldren’s April talk on the rebuilding of the railway in Llangollen, we travel back over 100 years as we explore the line’s Victorian origins. Peter Dickinson, Llangollen’s current Station Master will cover the early railway schemes in the Dee Valley and the challenges the railway builders faced linking the town of Llangollen to the rest of the railway network.
More events throughout 2025 will follow shortly.