Allan George Weldon Garraway (14 June 1926 – 30 December 2014) was a British railway manager, responsible for restoring the abandoned

Ffestiniog Railway The Ffestiniog Railway ( cy, Rheilffordd Ffestiniog) is a heritage railway based on narrow-gauge, located in Gwynedd, Wales. It is a major tourist attraction located mainly within the Snowdonia National Park. The railway is roughly long an ...

in the 1950s. He was awarded an

MBE Mbe may refer to: * Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo * Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria * Mbe language, a language of Nigeria * Mbe' language, language of Cameroon * ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language Molal ...

in 1983.

Early life

Garraway was born on 14 June 1926 in Cambridge. He was educated at

The Leys School The Leys School is a co-educational independent school in Cambridge, England. It is a day and boarding school for about 574 pupils between the ages of eleven and eighteen, and a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference. Histo ...

in Cambridge, but was evacuated with the school to

Pitlochry Pitlochry (; gd, Baile Chloichridh or ) is a town in the Perth and Kinross council area of Scotland, lying on the River Tummel. It is historically in the county of Perthshire, and has a population of 2,776, according to the 2011 census.Scotla ...

during the Second World War. He studied at

St Catharine's College, Cambridge St Catharine's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1473 as Katharine Hall, it adopted its current name in 1860. The college is nicknamed "Catz". The college is located in the historic city-centre of Camb ...

and graduated in 1947.

Military career

After leaving university, Garraway joined the

Corps of Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is heade ...

, and was posted to Germany, where he became the locomotive superintendent of the Detmold Military Railway and was promoted to the rank of captain.

British Railways

After the end of his military service, Garraway joined

British Railways British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

, training as a locomotive engineer at

Doncaster Works Doncaster Railway Works is a railway workshop located in Doncaster, England. Also referred to as The Plant''", it was established by the Great Northern Railway in 1853, replacing the previous works in Boston and Peterborough. Until 1867 it un ...

. He was later taken on as assistant to the Motive Power Superintendent of the Eastern Region of British Railways.

Railway preservation

In 1950, Garraway was one of the initial group of volunteers who rescued the

Talyllyn Railway The Talyllyn Railway ( cy, Rheilffordd Talyllyn) is a narrow gauge preserved railway in Wales running for from Tywyn on the Mid-Wales coast to Nant Gwernol near the village of Abergynolwyn. The line was opened in 1865Drummond 2015, page 17 ...

. This was the first railway in the world to be run entirely by volunteers and started the railway preservation movement. The next year, he was one of the "Bristol group" of volunteers who proposed rescuing the

Festiniog Railway The Ffestiniog Railway ( cy, Rheilffordd Ffestiniog) is a heritage railway based on narrow-gauge, located in Gwynedd, Wales. It is a major tourist attraction located mainly within the Snowdonia National Park. The railway is roughly long an ...

which lay moribund about 20 miles north of the Talyllyn. By 1953, enough of the Festiniog Railway had been restored to start a public service, with the first train running on 23 July 1955. In November 1954, Garraway was appointed the engineer of the Festiniog Railway. In June 1955, he left British Railways and became the full-time Manager and Engineer of the Festiniog. In 1958, he became the first General Manager of the revived company. He regularly drove trains on the railway until 1974, usually on the footplate of Linda. He stepped down as General Manager of the Festiniog in 1983, continuing as a consultant until 1986.

Personal life

Garraway married Moira McMillan, on 23 October 1965. For a while they lived in a flat converted from an office in

Porthmadog Harbour railway station Porthmadog Harbour railway station (formerly known as ''Portmadoc'' Harbour railway station) in Porthmadog (formerly ''Portmadoc''), Gwynedd (formerly Merioneth), North Wales. It is the passenger terminus of two narrow gauge railways: the Ff ...

, but later they moved to a bungalow in

Minffordd Minffordd (''roadside'' in Welsh) is a village within the Welsh county of Gwynedd. It is situated on the A487 road between Porthmadog and Penrhyndeudraeth, and in the community of the latter. The village has two adjacent railway stations, which ...

. In 1986, the Garraways retired to

Boat of Garten Boat of Garten ( gd, Coit a' Ghartain; originally: Garten) is a small village and post town in Badenoch and Strathspey, Highland, Scotland. In 1951, the population was less than 400; in 1971, it was almost 500; in 1981, it was almost 700, and the ...

in Scotland. Garraway died on 30 December 2014, three years after Moira.

References

1926 births 2014 deaths British people associated with Heritage Railways Ffestiniog Railway Members of the Order of the British Empire {{rail-transport-bio-stub