LADAS was the Snowdon Mountain Railway's first steam engine built in the 1890's in 1895 but was scrapped in 1896 due to a terrible accident on the Railway.
History[]
She was manufactured at the Swiss Locomotive and Machine Works in Winterthur, Switzerland in 1895 and was named after Laura Alice Duff Assheton-Smith, the wife of a major local landowner. She was operating the first public passenger train on 6 April 1896 when she had a very severe accident, as she was coming back down the line, Ladas derailed and went cab over wheels down the mountain. When she reached the bottom, she was a complete wreck with only the pistons, motion, frames and wheels still intact. Ladas was damaged beyond repair, so she was scrapped. To this day, the Snowdon Mountain Railway has never replaced Ladas with another engine that carries the number one.
Livery[]
It is generally accepted that the livery for the locomotives around this time was red.
In fiction[]
- Godred the Culdee Fell Mountain Railway engine from Thomas & Friends in the Railway Series Books is based on this locomotive which was wrecked in 1896 but in the Railway Series Book Godred was wrecked in 1900 .
Gallery[]
