Little West Narrow Gauge
Garden Railway

In 1984 construction commenced of a 2ft (60cm) gauge garden railway on a piece of land owned by and adjacent to Little West Residential Home at Southerndown, seven miles south-west of Bridgend. The railway was initially built using 14lb per yard rail acquired from Chalk Pits Museum in Sussex. In 1988/9 this rail was replaced with 20/25lb per yard track which had originally been used at Butlins Minehead. In 1994 following the closure of the residential home much of the trackwork was lifted and placed in store, but in 2001 the remaining rail was restored to running condition. At its maximum the railway totalled around 150 metres in length but latterly had only 40 metres of running track.

The last remnants of the railway were dismantled in September 2005 prior to sale of the site. Most of the rail went to a private railway in Gloucestershire, one set of points and a few short lengths of portable track were moved to a new town location where a token narrow-gauge railway will be built in the web-master's back garden.
A photograph taken in the summer of 1985 during the construction of the garden railway. The rail had been purchased from Chalk Pits Museum a few months previously and the photo shows one of the Lister Autotrucks used to carry ballast and materials round the site during construction.
Locomotive "Little Owl" was constructed in 1986 using the engine and gearbox from a 1973 Lister Autotruck and wheels from a Hudson skip. The loco was restyled in 1988 to the form shown in the photographs. This loco remained at Little West until 2002 when it was placed on loan to a private garden railway in Gloucestershire.
Ruston & Hornsby 181820 built 1936. New to the River Severn Catchment Board, the loco spent a number of years at Toddington in Gloucestershire before moving to Little West where is was the mainstay of the loco fleet. The loco was sold in the mid 1990s and is now at Old Kiln Light Railway in Hampshire and is now named "Red Dwarf"
Ruston & Hornsby 175414 built 1936. Owned by the Cilgwyn Society the locomotive was stored and used at Little West for a few years in the early 1980s. The wooden home-built cab fitted by a previous owner was removed shortly after arriving at Southerndown and the third photo shows the loco just before a repaint. The locomotive is now at the National Museum of Wales Slate Museum at Llanberis.
The final locomotive to arrive at Little West was a Lister Railtruck. No 962, the oldest surviving example, was built in the late 1920s and sold to Birmingham Canal Navigation Co at Brownhills wharf. The loco survived in a Birmingham scrap yard until the 1980s until spotted by an enthusiast and saved for preservation. The loco is now in private ownership in Staffordshire but can occasionally be seen at Amerton Farm Railway. Lister Railtrucks were supplied to two Brickworks in the Bridgend area, one to Tondu Brickworks and another to Bryncethin Brickworks.
A few photographs taken during a Vintage Rally at Little West in the mid 1980s. A rally was held for a number of years on the second Sunday in August, the exhibitors attending the nearby Ewenny Summer Show on the Day before.