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Allan Garraway

Steam train pioneer who saved the endangered Festiniog line and drove an engine named Linda

Allan Garraway, who has died aged 88, was a pioneer of steam railway preservation, helping to revive the historic Festiniog narrow gauge line in North Wales and giving up his career with British Railways to manage it lull-time for 28 years.

When Garraway first became involved in efforts to save the Festiniog in 1951, it had been closed for five years and was decaying fast. When the businessman and enthusiast Alan Pegler - who later owned the Flying Scotsman -acquired the company three years later, Garraway joined its board; he was the Festiniog’s full-time engineer and manager when services resumed over a short section of line in 1955, and was appointed general manager in 1958.

By the time he retired in 1983, the line had reopened over its entire length from Porthmadog to Blaenau Ffestiniog. 'This was after the company had won a legal battle with the Central Electricity Generating Board, which had flooded part of the track to create a reservoir. The CEGB offered nominal compensation, dismissing the Festiniog as "amateurs playing trains", but was eventually forced to pay out - the Festiniog Railway’s own volunteers constructing a deviation for the line to reach its objective.

Garraway was at the helm of the world’s oldest operational railway company, dating back to 1832, as it renovated and added to its Victorian carriages and locomotives -including a stable of double-ended Fairlie locomotives built for hauling heavy trainloads of slate - and became a major tourist attraction. His natural leadership qualities motivated a largely volunteer staff and maintained standards.

He could turn his hand to almost any job on the railway, but was happiest driving Linda, one of its smallest locomotives. Cutting a commanding figure in oilskins which he christened his “Cod War gear”, he preferred an engine without an enclosed cab, reckoning that this gave him a better chance to inspect the state of the track in the almost incessant rain.

Garraway “lived over the shop” after fashioning a flat out of offices over the station at Porthmadog -staying there for a time even after marrying Moyra Macmillan in 1965. They “went away” on a special tram driven by Bill Hoole, a “top link” BR driver whom Garraway had recruited to the Festiniog, their journey hampered by colleagues closing level-crossing gates with non-standard padlocks. Moyra helped out on the footplate, getting her dress covered in smuts.

Allan George Weldon Garraway was born in Cambridge on June 14 1926, the son of a railway manager with the London & North Eastern. Soon after starting at The Leys School, he was evacuated with it to Pitlochry; he fell in love with the Scottish Highlands, where he would live for the last 30 years of his life.

At St Catherine’s College, Cambridge, Garraway was a keen oarsman. After graduating in 1947 he was commissioned into the Royal Engineers, becoming locomotive superintendent for the Detmold Military Railway in Germany. Demobilised in the rank of captain, he trained as a locomotive engineer at BR’s Doncaster works, then served as an assistant to the motive power superintendent, Eastern Region.

Garraway got involved in the Talyllyn Railway, the first in Britain to be taken over by enthusiasts. Then, in 1951, he was one of a group who met in Bristol to see whether the Festiniog could be rescued. Following Pegler’s takeover, frantic efforts by Garraway and a few other volunteers enabled trains to resume over the Cob causeway between Porthmadog and Boston Lodge on July 23 1955.

Garraway also found time in Porthmadog to help restore and then sail the steam pinnace Victoria,

On retiring in 1983, he moved to Boat of Garten, on the equally spectacular Strathspey Railway, of which he became a director.

He also took up rowing again, becoming secretary, treasurer and eventually the first honorary member of Inverness Rowing Club, which he helped to acquire a boathouse. Until then Garraway would carry his boat 400 yards from the club’s temporary store to the Caledonian Canal, make a separate journey for the oars, row six miles each way, and then carry everything back again. Between 1989 and 2002 he recorded 1,091 outings on the canal in everything from single sculls to eights. Giving up rowing at 76, he donated his kit to the club.

Garraway was vice-president of the Heritage Railway Association, and chairman and later president of the Gresley Society. He was appointed MBE in 1983.

Moyra Garraway died in 2011.

Allan Garraway, born June 14 1926, died December 30 2014