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Wednesday 19 February 2014

Progress Report 4

A fairly busy Spring and Summer has enabled me to reach the 50+ point in my quest - which means I am now about a quarter of the way through my plan to visit every one of the narrow gauge railways in the UK with a gauge of 12" or more.

In April, a trip to the South East of England saw me visiting:
Great Bush Railway
In May, there was a chance to visit some of railways in North Wales
There was also time for a return visit to
and also a quick trip to London enabled me to bag the
 and to attend one of the Open Days at the Duke of Westminster's estate near Chester to ride on
 In June, I visited an Open Day for the
and in August I paid a return visit to the
and attended a Steam Festival at
In September I made a trip to see
and a return visit to London resulted in a trip to Brighton to travel on the
Vale of Rheidol
plus a trip to Southend to visit the
Lakeside Railway - Southport
To round off the year, I took a day trip to Southport where I bagged

Ffestiniog Railway
I must say, that the welcome I've received from the staff on all the railways I have visited has been exemplary, though I have found there is a tendency for there to be an inverse proportional relationship between the enthusiasm of welcome and the size of the railway system. However, this is no hard and fast rule because I must say I was extremely impressed by the quality of the show put on by the Ffestiniog Railway personnel for enthusiasts who turned out for their 150th anniversary celebration event in May. There were numerous well stage-managed photo opportunities and although the numbers visiting were impressively large, the staff maintained a cheerful disposition on both the FR and the Welsh Highland Railway.

So far, only one definite trip is planned so for for 2014, to the Isle of Man (in July) but I also hope to
Image: © Peter Killey - www.manxscenes.com
visit a few more railways in the London area when we take a short break down there in the Summer. We are also hoping to visit South Wales at some point to complete the itinerary for Welsh narrow gauge railways visits and maybe, if time permits, take a short break in Scotland to tick off all the Scottish narrow gauge railways. However, we might make a bigger trip in that direction in 2015 to encompass the railways along the North East coast as we progress Northwards.