Barry Scrapyard – The Woodhams Legacy
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Pre-order your copy today, on-sale 29th January 2027
Much has been written about heritage railways, enough to fill the British Library, but little on the Barry scrapyard phenomenon and its owner Dai Woodham, without which none of it would have been possible. Unlike other Welsh yards, which between them massacred hundreds of steam locomotives in a merciless manner, from 1965 Dai Woodham turned his cutting torches to an almost endless supply of coal and mineral wagons. This wasn’t because of any great love for the once magnificent locomotives that came through his gates, but purely because scrapping wagons was quicker and easier.
This switch to wagons allowed over 200 steam locomotives to escape Woodham’s yard and have preservationists breathe life into them once again, transforming rusty and stripped hulks to gleaming, living machines, as good as when they rolled off the production line at Swindon, Derby and Crewe.
Just as Britain pioneered the development of railways throughout the globe, Dai Woodham enabled Britain to lead the way in railway preservation. If someone had suggested in the 1960s that a scrap merchant would be responsible for supplying nearly every heritage railway with motive power, no one would have believed them. Dai Woodham probably wouldn’t have believed it either.
Barry Scrapyard – The Woodhams Legacy is not only a tribute to the preservationist who, against all the odds, have restored rusty hulks, but to Dai Woodham. He once described the whole experience of groups squabbling over locomotives, and metal thefts totalling over £100,000, as a “nightmare” but kept the faith and created a legacy that will never be forgotten.
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