in 1949, tom rolt, who was a writer, visited the railway. david curwen, who was a locomotive engineer, visited with him. in the summer of 1950, rolt wrote a letter to the "birmingham post". he told them that it was important to rescue talyllyn. many people had interest in this. on october 11 1950, a meeting was held about it in birmingham at the imperial hotel. about 70 people attended. rolt told them that he thought they should make a committee, or a team, to look into buying the railway. the committee met again on october 23. they met with the people who ran haydn jones' finances after he had died.