LLANGOLLEN RAILWAY members are appealing to the public to help them raise enough money to house and preserve a “rare” item.

The railway has been successfully negotiating the acquisition of a historic horse-drawn dray from the turn of the last century.

The Great Western Railway horse dray was discovered in a domestic garage earlier this year in Royal Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire, having been stored there since the early 1960s.

Llangollen Railway staff and volunteers now need the public’s help to purchase and transport it over for public display and operation during special events.

Railway horse-drawn drays were used extensively in the early days of the railways, to bring goods to a railhead or take them away. Many thousands of these carts were built before commercial motorised traffic.

This rare example was built by the Great Western Railway and bears the works No. 3314. It dates back to the turn of the 1900s.

A Crowdfunding page is aiming to raise a sum of £3,400 to help transport the dray to the railway. Link to donate here: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/gwr-dray?utm_term=eVG4AeDkx