The Group sees itself firstly as a promoter of the Festiniog Railway’s heritage. When the Group was formed we had some ideas as to what we ought to do. These have changed a bit and expanded. At first we saw ourselves mainly as “friends of the museum” and put a lot of effort into revamping the museum. We still see that as part of our remit but the museum has now closed due to pressure on space from the commercial side of the operation. The idea of another, bigger and better museum lives on and we await the opportunity to do something about it. Meanwhile we have ideas for displays at other places within the railway and are pursuing those.

More recently we have involved ourselves in restoring some of the Railway’s historic but less used rolling stock. Most of that is now done but needs to be maintained and the Group has moved on to replicas of vanished stock and buildings.

The Group was directly responsible for the restoration of the Simplex locomotive “Mary Ann” to its 1954 condition. The first stage was to restore the external appearance, a relatively simple task. Installation of an original petrol engine and the expensive refurbishment of the original radiator, drive chains and sprockets, over £8000 worth of work and components, was completed in time for the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the reopening of the railway, in 1954, events in which the Simplex had played an important part.

The other main function of the Group is to promote research into the FR’s past. Results of this are published in the Group’s quarterly Journal. It has also prepared a detailed Chronology of the restoration of the line and this is an on-going project. We are thankful to have close associations with the Gwynedd County Archive Service who hold most of the Railway’s archives relating to the pre-restoration period up to 1954. These will soon be available for public inspection.