Friday Update: Three Six Twenty-two…

Summer is officially here and the valley is lush and green as the rain and sunshine results in vigorous growth of both this years crop of cucumbers (yay!) the lawn (boo!) and the weeds along the Llangollen’s right of way…

School holidays and a week away from the workbench does not mean a week of no trains, as I have managed two trips on the Ffestiniog as well as seeing trains on our own Llangollen. The kids love to race the train at the park in the village, much to the entertainment of those on board. Sharing a few photos of the line with my good friend Chris he noted from across the Atlantic:

In this state this is a kind of realism that lets us not just see trains of the period but running on a railway that looks the way Beeching saw it. This makes the Llangollen realistic where perhaps a better maintained preserved railway fails?

It was my son’s birthday recently and he had saved enough money to buy himself a Peco Princess from the shop at Porthmadog, despite being a little more expensive than the box shifters it added to the event for him as he admired it throughout the journey to Blaenau that followed. Shown here on his small micro layout we managed a little work on the goods yard, river and added some greenery to the edges, it’s coming along wonderfully and he is very proud of what he’s achieved so far…

On his way back to his Mum’s later in the week we stopped by the Glyn Valley preservation efforts at Chirk to see what had been achieved first hand. I know what all this looked like before, so it’s an impressive start and I wish the group the best of luck with their plans for restoration on the site.  

I’ve also, perhaps unsurprisingly, found Beaverbrook to be the perfect tonic to a day of demands, running a variety of my locomotives that hadn’t been used for a few weeks. The view across the recently completed road surface is wonderful and playing trains and enjoying this and other cameo views is encouraging me to push in with the structures and next, the greenery. 

I’ve had another busy month of growth in readership and I’d love to hear from you all, where you’re from, what you model and what brings you here? I hope both newcomers and regulars alike enjoy the weekend and as usual, more soon…