TALYLLYN Railway has received a cash boost from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The Narrow Gauge Railway Museum, established in 1956, has received a grant of £42,700 to refresh its collection and displays, most significantly of two new locomotives, and to enhance its education programme.

Physical work on the displays starts immediately, with completion set for early March 2017.

The expanded STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education programme will run for the remainder of 2017, focusing on helping children to understand how steam engines work, and how their use influenced the shape of our society.

This will build on the museum’s existing objectives of providing exciting opportunities for visitors young and old to learn about the locomotives and railway artefacts in the collection, and to provide a window into the many roles of small, narrow-gauge railways in everyday life in the British Isles.

Located at the historic Talyllyn Railway, the world‘s first volunteer-run railway, the Narrow Gauge Railway Museum is entirely run by a small group of about 30 volunteers, mostly local, who will undertake much of the work involved.

The generous support provided by the HLF will allow them to employ professional suppliers to deliver the more technically demanding parts of the project.

The project will enable visitors of all ages to see how narrow- gauge railways played a vital part in two industries previously unrepresented in the museum’s collection, limestone quarrying and forestry, as well as how the internal combustion engine supplanted steam motive power in railway operations in the 20th century.

Read the full story in this Thursday’s Meirionnydd edition of the Cambrian News