Steam locomotives The railway has four steam locomotives for use on passenger trains, three of which were built for the Vale of Rheidol line and have operated on the line ever since. A
Garratt locomotive arrived in 2017 for use on passenger trains and is not prototypical for the line historically. }}}
Diesel locomotives The steam locomotive fleet is today supplemented by a number of diesel locomotives. Although they lack the power of the steam locomotives, they are available for shunting duties or works trains. No 10 can also operate light passenger trains.
Self propelled engineering plant The railway has a number of vehicles for permanent way maintenance.
Former locomotives No 1, & No 2 (later 1212 & 1213) The VoR commenced operations with two locomotives constructed by
Davies & Metcalfe of
Manchester, Nos.1 and 2. These locomotives were given Nos.1212 and 1213 by the GWR when it took over the line on grouping. They were Davies and Metcalfe's first locomotives and a
Great Central Railway boilersmith, Thomas Kay, provided expertise in their construction. The contract was given to a company previously inexperienced in locomotive building (although previously they were involved in the repair of locomotives and made injectors) because Mr. Metcalfe was an Aberystwyth man. The design draws inspiration from the
Manning Wardle s on the then-newly opened
Lynton and Barnstaple Railway, to which they bear some resemblance. This may be because the Szlumper family was heavily involved in both railways' design and construction.
No 3 (later 1198) No. 3 was a one-off small locomotive, originally built by
Bagnall of
Stafford for a Brazilian sugar cane plantation in 1896 but never delivered as the order was cancelled, Bagnall regauging the locomotive from to when it was sold to the
Plynlimon and Hafan Tramway and named
Talybont. In 1903, after the failure of the Plynlimon and Hafan, it was purchased by the VoR, regauged to and renamed
Rheidol. The GWR numbered it 1198 in 1923, but it was withdrawn and
scrapped the following year, having never carried its GWR number.
No 4 In 1902 the railway's Directors temporarily hired a locomotive from the
Ffestiniog Railway. The locomotive sent was
Ffestiniog No 4 Palmerston. The following year VoR locomotive No 3
Rheidol was acquired (see entry above), but a need for a fourth locomotive was still discerned.
Palmerston No 4 was therefore hired again from Ffestiniog, and became the regular fourth locomotive for the next twenty years, being hired for several long periods, interspersed with brief home visits to Ffestiniog. The locomotive carried fleet number '4' in reference to its position on its home railway, although the number also matched its position on the Vale of Rheidol, as the fourth locomotive. When the line was acquired by the Great Western Railway, the leased locomotive was no longer required and was returned to Ffestiniog (from where it was immediately re-hired to the Welsh Highland Railway, to assist with construction).
Palmerston (an ) was built in 1864 by George England of New Cross, the fourth of the original four Ffestiniog Railway locomotives and was named after the Prime Minister,
Viscount Palmerston.
Palmerston returned to the Vale of Rheidol in 2014, hauling a series of special trains during September to celebrate its association with the VoR, and to commemorate both a century of history since the first world war, and 25 years of VoR independent operation. ==Coaching stock==