De Winton of Caernarfon, Engineers of Excellence

by Alfred Fisher, David Fisher, Gwynfor Pierce Jones  RCL Publications 2011

Hardback £38

This book traces the origins of the Foundry and its rise to success; it tells the tales of the workers and their skills, and of its slow decline echoing that of the native slate industry. Although best known for its popular small vertical boilered quarry locomotives and a magnificent water wheel, the manufacture of quarry equipment, bridges, wagons, stationary engines, and in particular ships and their boilers, was a much more commercially important aspect of their operations, largely overlooked until now, but here covered in two specialised chapters. The surprising variety of innovative locomotives made by the De Winton Works are dealt with in great detail, while a technical chapter analysing their construction, use and performance, is aided by extensive new drawings. A chapter on the famous Pen-yr-Orsedd Slate Quarry, where the type last operated in any number, is followed by the fascinating saga of the purchase and eventual restoration of the most famous of the surviving locomotives.