July

It is now very nearly the end of July, a month that hasn’t seen a single blog post.

The main reason for this is that I haven’t done much in the way of model making. Whilst the mojo has been lacking, I have at least managed a bit of an overdue sort and clearing out of some of the items that had been stored in my model railway attic room.

Indecision as to how to progress layout wise has been one issue. One bonus of having Wheal Ponder though is that when an impasse arrives, I switch the layout on and run a few trains. This certainly helps makes sense of my indecision and remind me not to turn small projects in to large ones, it really doesn’t suit me.

Here is ‘King of the Pixies’ arriving with the passenger tram cars on my most recent operating session.

There have also been other distractions this month. Early in July saw the Talyllyn holding another one of their entertaining ‘Anything Goes’ weekends. Great fun with some weird and wonderful trains running about. Never ceases to amaze me how the organisers manage to get the best out of our limited collection of toys with the minimal chance of visiting traction to keep each of these looking different.

Arriving on the Friday lunchtime, I was able to spend the afternoon sampling some of the delights of the beer festival that was accompanying the event.

There was also a gala weekend happening on Llechfan Garden Railway with a lot of 16mm scale models running. Sadly, I didn’t see much of those as I spent most of my weekend up at Abergynolwyn.

Saturday saw me driving Toby the Trolley. We were giving trolley rides in return for a donation to the Talyllyn 75 appeal. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and we raised over £140 in donations so worthwhile doing.

We even gave some footplate crews rides back down to their locos after tea break when stabled down the west end of the station.

One of our volunteer blockmen working that weekend found the trolley service most useful. Having finished his shift at a blockpost, he was able to get back to his caravan, get changed, and take advantage of me running back to Pendre after the last down train had gone to hitch a lift down to the beer festival.

Sunday saw me rostered back up at Abergynolwyn as Blockman. A handy place for lunch, cups of tea and pieces of cake from the cafe and a good window to watch the passing trains from.

That wasn’t all the gallivanting this month… over the years there has been a strong link between Talyllyn volunteering and enjoying exploring our nation’s canal network. Starting with L.T.C. Rolt pioneering on both Talyllyn and inland waterways restoration.

My introduction to inland waterways started the year I graduated university, when I was asked if I wanted to join the annual Talyllyn volunteers’ canal cruise. Thoroughly enjoying the week on the Kennet and Avon canal, I’ve enjoyed several trips exploring the canals of the Midlands and Wales.

Parenthood had restricted my ditch crawling adventures in recent years. However, our latest adventure has seen us introduce our daughter to narrow boat life and she took to it like the proverbial duck to water.

This year’s drought has left water levels quite low and whilst we were able to cruise the short stretch we wanted to do, there are now numerous stoppages on the network due to low water levels. What we did see though was a large number of herons, one of my favourite birds. We counted seven in about a ten mile stretch of canal. Plus also saw one elusive Kingfisher. Showing that whilst the water levels might be low, the water is full of life.

Although only a long weekend break, I’m already thinking about the next cruise… and whether I can combine narrow gauge railways and a canal in one model!