Another visit to a garden railway...

Today I steamed my new locomotive for the first time since I brought her home at the weekend... my neighbour Paul had a small gathering at his place, we had 4 of us there, alas I was the only 7/8ths modeller...

Paul's line is quite a challenge to drive smoothly with lots of gradients, and the foliage is shall we say, well established. Once this had been cleared and a few troublesome bits of track seen to, I had a reasonably uneventful run of about 25 minutes. I reckon I can run with the gas turned down even lower so should manage over 30 minutes steaming easily on my own line. I took a selection of stock, all based on Model-earth budget trucks, which looked at home and behaved themselves, despite some of the damage done to Paul's line by a marauding sheep and the hot weather!

The final shot shows a a pair of Lady Anne's (the black one belonging to John and his lovely hand made coaches coasts down hill into the station, whilst the green one belonging to Paul sits on the old loop line having a rest after running first.

Good to run trains and talk with nice chaps in the sunshine. More soon I hope!