Long time no blog.

We've had a busy few weeks and not much chance to blog. 

Tonight I thought I'd add a few photos taken fairly recently. 

This is the Barrowford end of the Foulridge Tunnel on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. 

The rest are from a walk I did along the Wyrley and Essington Canal from Wednesfield to Wolverhampton. 

This used to have locks on it until the retail development. Now it is just an ideal mooring for the pub. 

The rest are taken on my walk. 

Tyseley open day.

Sunday was a great day as it was fine and Tyseley open day. Yippee lots of steam trains. 

After a long bus journey to get there our first adventure was a short trip on a steam hauled train. With this loco. 

After this we were delighted to see Bittern, the star of the day. 

 

We had to be shooed out of the way so it could come past us. I thoroughly enjoyed being 18 inches from a moving steam train. 

Bittern was followed by Earl Mount Edgcumbe. 

They then coupled together and ran as a pair. 

Gracie wanted to see the engineering shed, so we wandered around it and then found ourselves in the viewing area as the afore mentioned locos did a few runs past. 

There were loads of people watching as the locos disappeared into the cloud of steam they produced. 

Then we made our own spot the difference photos. 

Can you see the changes I made in the next two photographs?

To round off our trip spectacularly they decided to turn Bittern on the turntable 

The following pictures tried to capture this whilst avoiding a buffer in the tummy!

A fantastic event :-). 

Blackburn and back.

Today it was a trip up the west coast line to Blackburn to pick up KM and Gracie. 

The 9:15 from New Street was where I started. 

Unfortunately, or typically, I was late into Preston  and missed my connection. 

It was then plan B and a train to Blackburn 

Before another train back to Mill Hill. 

Not too much delay thankfully. 

Children were safely collected and then it was time for the journey back. 

But no train. 

And little information. 

Anyway, it was late but eventually arrived. 

Perhaps it's colder up north than I remember. 

We got the Pendolino back and arrived safely. 

Lots of travelling but much better than driving. 

Tramming at Crich

I was duty one again today. A poor weather forecast and not wanting to shunt trams around, helped me choose Glasgow 812 to drive today. 

A nice air brake tram. 

In fact all today's trams were air brake, Blackpool 630

And Leeds 180

The access tram was also out. 

The weather steadily improved throughout the day and we had over 300 visitors, far better than I had expected. 

Today's Duty Onspector was my good friend Roger, seen in action dealing with matters of the day in front of the newly repainted tardis. 

In the afternoon Blackpool 762 was out on driver training. 

Another great day, I drove 12 round trips. 

All too soon it was time for cleaning trams and going home, but one last photo opportunity to show off 630s new platform doors. 

Only one more driving day before the end of the season. It always goes so quickly.