Porthmadog Wales - The rolling hills of North Wales are set to reverberate to the sound of a new steam locomotive after the railway unveiled their latest engine, "Lyd".
 
The UK's newest steam locomotive has been officially named at a ceremony at Beddgelert.
 
The locomotive was completed at the Ffestiniog Railway's Boston Lodge Works, the oldest operational railway workshop in the world, in Porthmadog last month after a 15 year project costing £350,000.
 
The steam engine is based on a locomotive which previously travelled the now defunct Barnstaple to Lynton railway in North Devon.

Not entirely defunct... see this article on the Lynton & Barnstaple Railway.

However, the new locomotive has made extensive use of 21st century design and materials to make it as efficient as possible and more powerful than its predecessor.
 
The naming was carried out by the families of the two project leaders, James Evans and Paul Lewin.
 
The naming of Lyd forms part of the preparations for the opening of the Welsh Highland Railway, North Wales' newest, and the UK's longest, heritage railway.
 
The Ffestiniog section of the line is already open with the full Welsh Highland Railway set to be completed by 2011.
 
Once open, trains will travel from Caernarfon to the Ffestiniog Railway's Harbour Station in Porthmadog, with the two lines offering visitors a journey across Snowdonia that stretches more than 40 miles in length.
 
Trains on the new Welsh Highland Railway will cross the width of the Snowdonia National Park, past the foot of Snowdon and the beautiful village of Beddgelert, before travelling the length of the Aberglaslyn Pass, voted the most beautiful spot in the UK by members of the National Trust.
 
This year an additional three miles of track has been brought into service to a new southern terminus at Pont Croesor, alongside the RSPB's Glaslyn Osprey Centre.
 
Lyd is now set for a mini UK tour as it visits the Launceston Steam Railway in Cornwall, and the L&B in Devon, before returning to the F&WHR to receive the authentic Southern Railway green livery carried by the original L&B locos.
 
The locomotive will enter regular service on both the Ffestiniog and Welsh Highland Railways in 2011, early tests indicating that the loco should be capable of hauling ten carriage trains on the FR and five on the steeper WHR.
 
Along with FR single Fairlie loco Taliesin and a train of vintage carriages, Lyd travelled to the Welsh Highland Railway the day before the naming across the Porthmadog Cross Town Rail Link (CTRL) from the Ffestiniog Railway's Harbour Station.
 
Tim Clark.