THE world’s first heritage railway has held the last of its 150th anniversary celebrations.

The party, which started two years ago, officially ended with a re-enactment of the first public passenger train which ran in December 1866.

Composed of the same locomotive, No 2 Dolgoch, and carriages that are believed to have made up the original train, it ran between Tywyn Wharf and Abergynolwyn stations carrying members of the Talyllyn Railway Preservation Society and their guests.

A special stop was also made at Tywyn Pendre station, the original passenger terminus in Tywyn.

The Railway’s 150th anniversary celebrations began in 2014 when remembering the completion of locomotive No 1 Talyllyn at the Lowca Engineering works of Fletcher, Jennings and Co in Whitehaven on 24 September 1864.

They continued through a series of seven galas in 2015 and 2016, tracing the story of the history of the railway and celebrating various landmark dates, including the opening of the line to slate traffic and the passing of the Talyllyn Railway Act in July 1865.

Originally the commencement of the public passenger service was noted in a small paragraph in the North Wales Chronicle on 22 December 1866.

Here it was stated that passenger trains on the Railway had started departing from Abergynolwyn at 8am and 3pm, Monday to Saturday.

Unfortunately there is no indication of the precise date train services began running, but it is assumed that it was at some point in mid-December 1866.

Therefore, the re-enactment train took place at approximately 150 years after the original service began, and marked the fact that trains had run on the line every year since then. On its arrival at Abergynolwyn station there was a short speech given by the Railway’s general manager, Tracey Parkinson, before the passengers enjoyed some seasonal refreshments.

Read the full story in Thursday’s north editions of the Cambrian News