Rudyard

 An ongoing saga in the miniature railway world has been Adam Jeffrey's attempts to get planning permission for a new line. The good news is that instead, he has taken over ownership of the Rudyard Lake Railway, which is even closer to my doorstep than Apedale.

It has been a long time since I last visited, so long ago that my VHS camera was a novelty. I'm not sure if any footage survives. All Summer I'd been planning to visit, but family events largely got in the way.

So, I made a special effort for the steam gala weekend. What a day it was! There were lots of trains and lots of people keen to make it a success. I also ran into several people I'd only met online before  The highlights for me were the Climax and the two Curwen locos. A day ticket let me travel on several trains, with a half hourly service, but I still managed to walk miles getting photos.

Apedale

Apedale has been on my list of places to visit for a very long time. I never really expected to end up living just seven miles away.  Paul and I were initially planning to spend longer here, but having spent more time than expected at Crewe, we arrived late on the day of the classic car meet. In fact, we were met by a stream of classic cars leaving the site. And a packed cafe that simply couldn't cope with the number of visitors, though the staff were doing a good job defusing the situation.

Ogwen was in Steam, but for me, the main attraction was the plethora of Hudson ammo wagons, given that I have several 7/8ths kits to build. As usual, I still failed to take enough photos of them to answer all my questions.