4 August 1983 - a day trip to South Wales including a visit to Barry scrapyard.

I'd been before, in October 1968, when the yard was more-or-less full, and contained around 300 locomotives.

By the time of this visit, many had gone - to preservation - and a good few had been steamed and were enjoying a new lease of life. Perhaps 70 remained. I'm not sure how many of the locomotives in these pictures have been restored to working order - one or two perhaps, but not many, I suspect. The early leavers were the ones in the best condition, and as time went by, the remaining locomotives had useful parts removed, with the result that renovation would be a very major task.

But I haven't forgotten one locomotive in particular from that 1968 trip - no 71000, Duke of Gloucester - which had had its cylinders removed. "No chance for that one", we thought at the time... Sometimes it's good to be wrong.

I'm not certain of the identity of all the locomotives depicted - top left there are a couple of BR 2-6-4Ts, and representing the Southern there are Bulleid pacifics 34046 "Braunton" and 35025 "Brocklebank Line", as well as a 4-6-0 - I think it was 30499. 34053 "Sir Keith Park" is above (r), beneath what appears to be an 8F. I'm less sure of the GWR contenders - perhaps someone out there can advise me...