Welcome to the website of the award winning Llanuwchllyn Heritage Centre, based at the Bala Lake Railway. On this website you will find details of the historic stock in our display area at the far end of the carriage shed and elsewhere on the station site. Our stock is mostly owned by private individuals and is lovingly restored by our dedicated volunteers and staff. If you visit us and can't find a specific item, please don't hesitate to ask. This is a working railway and stock is frequently moved around the station site for operational reasons.
The display area has been made possible thanks to generous grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund.
An apology: We do not currently have a Welsh language version of this site, primarily due to a lack of Welsh speaking volunteers with the necessary time to perform the work. If you would like to help correct this omission, please get in touch.
On this website we use the spelling "Waggon" not "Wagon". The double "g" version is the historically correct spelling for our stock, while the single g is the modern term. We have decided (just to be different) to adopt the historical spelling for our heritage site.
Hunslet 704 Nesta of 1899 has been loaned to us for display by Rob Gambril. She was unloaded and eased into position on 17th October 2019 and is now on public display. Nesta was rescued from a Swamp in Puerto Rico a few years ago and has been in store…
Some of our waggons were out on the line for the June 2016 steam gala in Bala. Below is a video of some of the action including some on train footage showing what it’s like to ride in an unsprung slate waggon.
In addition to this website, we now have a Heritage Centre Facebook page where you will find updates on our waggon restoration work as and when it happens, see: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2105983689500135/
The Heritage centre is now open, after a ceremony performed by the Bala lake Railway chairman, Dr David Gwyn a noted expert on the Welsh Slate industry. Below are some pictures and a short video from the opening morning.