Barry Scrapyard

Keith W. Platt made his first visit to Woodham’s scrapyard, Barry, in the late 1960s at a time when steam locomotives could still be seen on the national network, going about the everyday business of working goods and passenger trains.

With the final withdrawal of steam operations, he began to make more visits to Barry as it became the very last bastion of British Rail’s steam locomotives. Keith sought to record, on slide film, the images of locomotives and the photos taken on those trips inadvertently reveal the gradual blossoming of the preservation movement. The number of locomotives in the yard shrunk – not because they had been cut up, but because they had been sold to individuals and societies. They had been removed to one of the many preservation sites and steam railways.

The appearance of the locomotives began to change over the years; firstly as the damp and salty sea air took its toll on the paintwork and bare metal, and then as different preservation groups set about the task of de-rusting, cleaning, and painting. Many locos were adorned with various painted messages proclaiming the status of the ownership and asking that parts should not be removed.

Keith’s last visits to the yard were very different. There were only a few locomotives left waiting to find a new home; the lines of hundreds of locomotives, which had been packed closely together, were now a mere memory.