This is the huge rig being used to drill a borehole for the Llangollen Heritage Railway.

The borehole will be used to supply water for steam engines for their return trip from the Corwen station to Llangollen.

The 36 ton rig, which is being operated by Corwen-based Dragon Drilling will be drilling a hole nearly a hundred feet deep and half a metre wide.

Geoff Ellison, chairman of Dragon Drilling, said: “It's very nice to be associated with a local project like this.

“Everybody likes steam engines and we're very proud they selected us to do it.

“It's about half a million pounds they're spending on this Corwen station so it's a part of that development.”

The water will be pumped out and into a storage tank for the heritage railway's tank engines.

“There's a gravel band in the rock about 30 metres down which is full of nice soft water so they can make the return trip.

“They wouldn't get it out of the tap like that, and what they do get they have to soften anyway; they can use this without any treatment,

“The rig weighs 36 tons and is drilling a borehole 50cm across, 30m down into that gravel band

“Then we'll put in pumping system in and that'll feed into a storage tank for them to use.

“It's impressive really, it's our second largest rig. It's one of seven we have in total and it will do the job in three days.”