Amgueddfa Cymru to rehome underused railway rolling stock

The primary purpose of this is to increase the public benefit that can be derived from under-used objects in the national collection through re-homing them. The objects will be given a new ‘lease of life’ through being displayed and/or used in different contexts where they can once again be enjoyed by the public.

Amgueddfa Cymru has had a collection of railway rolling stock that has been in storage at the National Collection Centre in Nantgarw since the closure of the Welsh Industrial & Maritime Museum in Cardiff Bay in 1998. With the collapse of the Wales Railway Centre plans, Amgueddfa Cymru continued to store the rolling stock incase it might be displayed at the National Waterfront Museum in Swansea when it opened in 2005. However, this was not possible given  the constrained city-centre location of this museum, and the narrative of its displays.

As an organisation, Amgueddfa Cymru has always been receptive to requests to loan rolling stock to heritage railways or to transfer ownership of it to heritage railways if appropriate. Items were loaned to the Vale of Glamorgan Railway from 1998 until that railway closed in 2005. Several locomotives and rolling stock have also been transferred to heritage railways over the years. Amgueddfa Cymru has built on this work by making further transfers to organisations who can enable better public access to the rolling stock and to potentially restore it to beneficial public enjoyment, whether as static display or as part of operational trains.

Dr Kath Davies, Director of Collections and Research said:

“Being able to rehome some of this stock is the best outcome possible as we love nothing more than being able to showcase Wales’s historical treasure. With  over 5.3 million objects in our collection it is impossible to show everything, so being able to rehome these stocks at different museums to bring them a new lease of life is something we are happy doing.”

All railway vehicles being rehomed received expressions of interest from museums and from Welsh heritage railways and museums, and Amgueddfa Cymru is liaising with the recipient organisations and specialist haulage contractors to achieve rehoming during February 2026.