The (Windmill Hill) Welsh Highland Railway

[philipy]

Beautiful, Andrew. I agree the last shot really does it.

[Andrew]

Thanks, glad you like the pictures.

I fuelled, oiled and watered 590 at lunchtime, ready for another run after work.

In the meantime, here's that last photo again, but with a filter (called "burlesque"!) applied:

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Quite nice, I thought...

Cheers,

Andrew.

[Soar Valley Light]

HI Andrew,

Lovely shots, all of them. The railway has settled into the landscape.

I love the filtered shot. It really does remind me of photos of WHR stations, the proportions look spot on. I've got 'The Welsh Highland Railway: A History' by Alun Turner on the chair beside me and the cover picture proves the point.

Andrew

[Andrew]

Thanks Andrew, glad you like it. And thanks too for the mention of the Alun Turner book - I thought I had a copy of all the Welsh Highland histories but didn't know about this one, I'll track down a copy.

The fun carried on after work...

590 and its goods train had finished the morning's duties at Clarach, where steam was raised once more...

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...before taking the goods down to Penlan and depositing it in the siding there...

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...and heading light engine down to Trefechan, where a passenger train awaited.

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The rest of the afternoon's running consisted of a return working to Clarach:

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On the return trip I felt a few drops of rain. The sky looked threatening, and I was keen to to get the rolling stock away. It lives under the house, in a storage space accessed through a little door next to Penlan station, so I performed a speedy run round followed by a very fast run through the tunnel and up the bank. Highly unprototypical, but lots of fun, and it sounded great. And you can't grow up on Thomas the Tank Engine without wanting to recreate The Express every now and then!

Hope you enjoy the pictures,

Andrew.

[LNR]

Hope you enjoy the pictures,

I did, thank you.
Grant.
PS I think you're going to be reluctant to return to normal work !!

[Mitch stack]

hey Andrew, is your line end to end or a loop?

mitch

[Andrew]

PS I think you're going to be reluctant to return to normal work !!

Yep!

Clearly there are some awful things going on, whether in hospital wards or tiny garden-less flats, but I must confess that aside from not being able to see family and friends, the slow pace of life kind of suits me as it is right now!

[Andrew]

hey Andrew, is your line end to end or a loop?

Hi Mitch!

It's sort of both - it goes all the way round the edge of the garden, but climbs all the way, so the two ends don't (can't!) meet up. It's actually just about a spiral, because the upper terminus sits on top of the tunnel that leads from the lower one. In the second picture in the sequence above, the tracks at the top of the picture are the upper station, while the one at the bottom is a siding from the lower one, about a foot below. There's a map of the line on this thread somewhere, five or six pages ago, maybe.

Sometimes I wish I had a continuous run, but I was thinking just yesterday that I miss it less and less. The set up I have really lends itself to the sort of running I was doing yesterday - short-ish, defined and pre-determined operations, designed to finish well before the gas runs out!

Cheers,

Andrew.

[FWLR]

Brilliant shot photos Andrew. You're weathering of the rolling stock is superb. A real working environment scenes I would love to run.

[sjrixon]

Really nice Andrew.. Love the loco..

Could you take some wide shots of the line and share? Sounds quite interesting layout you have there.

[Andrew]

Could you take some wide shots of the line and share? Sounds quite interesting layout you have there.

I'll try to remember to do that - will need to tidy up the garden a bit first though!

In the meantime, here are a few shots of a post-inspection run yesterday evening...

Cheers,

Andrew.

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[sjrixon]

Good pictures, thanks.. It's going to take that bolster wagon a while to load up all the wood in the background!!

[Andrew]

Good pictures, thanks.. It's going to take that bolster wagon a while to load up all the wood in the background!!

I fear it may end up somewhat overloaded!

[Andrew]

Eeek! Just went outside to sort a few things out before the rain starts and found that I'd left poor Russell in the garden for all of last night and most of today! In its box, but in the middle of the lawn! It's a good job the neighbours are honest...

[FWLR]

Flipping heck, that could have been a very costly mistake Andrew. Still alls well now and your Russell is safely back in the house.

I have done that with my cordless drill when we lived in our bungalow in Longton, like you, luckily it was that really hot summer in 2018..

[Soar Valley Light]

Really great pictures again Andrew. I loved the one's of 590 last week and I love yesterdays shots or Russel just as much. Very well taken to give maximum reality.

Andrew

[tom_tom_go]

I hope the Slomo fitted to Russell is providing realistic running with your end to end operations.

Russell really does look the part on your railway Andrew.

[Andrew]

Hello!

I had another running session this afternoon, a little different from the last few. In those I'd been trying to recreate the 1920s Welsh Highland as much as possible, but today's trains were just what I happened to fancy.

A mixed goods was formed of some of my smaller wagons, initially hauled by new-ish diesel No. 6.

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The Faller railbus provided a token passenger service but didn't seem to attract much (or, indeed, any) custom:

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To round things off, "Daisy", my Regner loco plodded about slowly too:

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It was a spur of the moment thing, with nothing but my elbows as a tripod, but I made a short film too, spliced together on my phone using some free software my daughter found for me. I quite like it, so I might edit it a little more aesthetically at some point. The "whistling" at the end of the first section is a neighbour's daughter tootling away on a recorder - I was inwardly cursing at the time, but it actually worked quite well. Maybe there's a sheep on the line!

Anyway, here's the film:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmH9AoT6bkE

Cheers all,

Andrew.

[FWLR]

Nice little video Andrew, love the shot coming through your new tunnel. The greenery growing over it looks just right.

[sjrixon]

Enjoyed the video. That loco runs so very nicely.