New Chipper for the Ffestiniog Railway
15th June 2007

During last years visit to the Ffestiniog it was noted that the chipper used by the railway was, shall we say, ready for a museum and just slightly illegal! Having discussed the issue with Mike Lidster of Vermeer, a suitable replacement was located which would become a joint venture between the Ffestiniog, Vermeer and Capel Manor students who would be carrying out maintenance and some repair work, which has now been completed.

Martin Duncan from the Ffestiniog Railway collected the chipper on Friday 15th June, ready to be commissioned by the arboriculture students during their visit to Wales the following week.

The official hand over will be in Porthmadog on Thursday 21st June, during which the students will hand the keys to Martin Duncan of the Ffestiniog Railway on behalf of Vermeer UK and Capel Manor College. The chipper will then enter service, complete with Capel Manor logos, helping to maintain the line side trees on both Ffestiniog and Welsh Highland Railways.

This project has not only provided excellent practical machinery experience for the students, but will also give them a sense of achievement seeing ‘their’ chipper being used on the railway. A full report of the work and hand over (complete with photographs) will be in the next issue of Arb New and the ISA UK&I Treeline.

image by John Harris