The 75 Appeal was officially launched in March 2024, aiming to raise £500,000 over five years (£100,000 a year) to support our major redevelopment project.

After nearly 75 years since the Talyllyn became the World’s First Preserved Railway, it has become clear that we need to replace some of our facilities which have become time-expired, as well as providing improved accommodation and attractions for our passengers, to ensure the Railway thrives for the next 75 years. Therefore, we have launched the “Preserving our Past, Building Our Future” redevelopment, the initial development phase of which is being funded by a grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

The redevelopment aims to provide:

• New engineering facilities at Tywyn Pendre.
• New carriage storage and dedicated maintenance facilities.
• A paint shop that can be used year round.
• The refurbishment of the historic locomotive shed and workshop.
• Visitor access to the original workshop area.
• Additional and accessible Volunteer Accommodation.
• An accessible and more visible entrance to Wharf station building.
• Enlarged shop, cafe and meeting room facilties.
• Additional attractions helping visitors understand our history and heritage.
• A community engagement programme to increase the number and range of visitors.

This is an ambitious multi-phase programme to be achieved over a multi-year time period. To help fund this we are planning to submit applications for subtantial grants from the National Lottery as well as other bodies, trusts, etc. Our status as part of a World Heritage Site and also the award of development funding from the National Lottery gives us great confidence that this is achieveable but we need to partly match this from our own resources.