Volume Four - An Era of Change, Uncertainty, Depression & War - Dai Woodham and steam graveyard . . .

I spent the second, third and forth years of my apprenticeship (1967-69) at Hodges (Barry) Engineering and Fownes Forge which were situated at the eastern end on the main No.1 dock at Barry. At the western end of the dock on the same side was the yard of Dai Woodham (1919-94) who specialised in the wholesale destruction of the rolling stock of the Western (and Southern) Region of British Railways, although there were three or four other organisations at it as well at Barry.

I’d like to take the opportunity to set the record straight about Dai Woodham. He most certainly was not the saviour of the steam engine as the steam heritage movement would have you believe; he was an inadvertent saviour! The truth is that there were thousands of coal trucks rusting away on miles and miles of sidings as a result of decline and the restructuring of British Railways under Dr. Beeching following his reports of 1963 and 1965.

The coal and goods infrastructure consisting of vintage mechanical signaling, rusty points and rails, saddled upon literally millions of rotting, or well-rotten sleepers was an unacceptable liability for British Rail. In order to uplift the sidings, the first priority was to dispose of the tens of thousands of coal trucks and goods wagons lying dormant in the sidings.

Dai was just a hard nosed businessman who started buying the locomotives in 1959 and accumulated 200 or so, steam engines on the sidings between Barry Town and Barry Island and watched-on as they were systematically vandalised and robbed whilst he busied himself (mostly) cutting up the redundant coal and goods wagons for the next ten years or so. The steel scrap was shipped out of Barry docks, 1m tons of it in 1967, often together with the ships that carried the scrap for a one way journey to India or China for recycling into products which don't work properly and cost just as much as when they were made here in the UK!

In 1968, after some "Tykes" (straight talking Yorkshiremen, with deep pockets and short arms, from the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway ; which is situated about three miles from our home!) enlightened him did he appreciate the value of his heritage haul. The heritage movement grew from there on.