Dai Woodham

Dai Woodham, MBE, BEM (5 September 1919 – 12 September 1994), born David Lloyd Victor Woodham, is remembered by many steam railway enthusiasts as the man who saved over 200 former British Railways steam locomotives from the scrap heap. Many of these were purchased by preserved railways and locomotive preservation groups and are now in active operation, including some permitted to haul passenger trains on the main line system. His family owned

Woodham Brothers Woodham Brothers Ltd is a trading business, based mainly around activities and premises located within Barry Docks, in Barry, South Wales. It is noted globally for its 1960s activity as a scrapyard (hence its colloquial name of Barry Scrapyard), ...

scrapyard A wrecking yard ( Australian, New Zealand, and Canadian English), scrapyard ( Irish, British and New Zealand English) or junkyard (American English) is the location of a business in dismantling where wrecked or decommissioned vehicles are bro ...

Barry Docks Barry Docks ( cy, Dociau'r Barri) is a port facility in the town of Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, a few miles southwest of Cardiff on the north shore of the Bristol Channel. They were opened in 1889 by David Davies and John Cory as an alterna ...

, Barry,

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...

. In the 1930s, the Woodhams started to trade in scrap metal, and in 1957, the company began dismantling railway wagons as a result of the

1955 Modernisation Plan Events January * January 3 – José Ramón Guizado becomes president of Panama. * January 17 – , the first nuclear-powered submarine, puts to sea for the first time, from Groton, Connecticut. * January 18– 20 – Battle of Yijian ...

. This sought to reduce the British Railways wagon fleet from over one million to just 600,000 and to scrap and replace around 16,000 remaining steam locomotives with new 'standard' designs as well as diesel and electric powered types. Dai Woodham was awarded the MBE in 1987 in recognition of a number of business initiatives which helped to create many jobs in the

area. Dai already held the British Empire Medal for bravery while serving with the

Royal Artillery The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery (RA) and colloquially known as "The Gunners", is one of two regiments that make up the artillery arm of the British Army. The Royal Regiment of Artillery comprises t ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. In 1994, Dai Woodham was diagnosed with

lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma (since about 98–99% of all lung cancers are carcinomas), is a malignant lung tumor characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. Lung carcinomas derive from transformed, malign ...

; he died on 12 September that year. {{DEFAULTSORT:Woodham, Dai 1919 births 1994 deaths 20th-century Welsh businesspeople British people associated with Heritage Railways Members of the Order of the British Empire Deaths from lung cancer in England Recipients of the British Empire Medal Royal Artillery personnel British Army personnel of World War II