WEST SOMERSET RAILWAY
Steelway masterminded the rebuilding and restoration of a 19th century Great Western Railway turntable.

Originally measuring 55’0’’ its home was Pwllheli in North Wales. With the demise of steam in the 1960’s the turntable became redundant but was offered a possible new lease of life when rescued by the then infant West Somerset Railway. For forty years the railway turntable awaited its restoration and in August 2007 began its journey to Steelway in Wolverhampton.

The turntable is the first GWR railway turntable to be extensively rebuilt and additionally is the only one to have been extended since the 1930’s from its original 55’0’’ to 65’0’’ using genuine GWR modification drawings. The railway turntable which weighed in excess of fifty tonnes was transported in one piece and craned into position by Steelway’s installation teams in February 2008.

The railway turntable will form the nucleus of a major new visitor’s attraction based around West Somerset Railway Station in Minehead.