Yesterday - Saturday 11th - was Member's Day at Apedale. This is an informal day which is intended to give Moseley Railway Trust members an opportunity to hear about how 2013 went, review plans for 2014 and be kept generally informed about what the Trust is up to. What it isn't is a formal meeting! In the afternoon, a group of members took the opportunity to head North across Apedale Road. This is a fabled area, marked on many maps with the words "Here Be Dragons" and the like. However, in a few years time, it will be graced by Apedale Valley Light Railway trains. Hopefully the trains will face less mud than did yesterday's explorers. Once the trains cross Apedale Road, they face a steady climb to an intermediate station at Birley Shales. The first photo shows the site of the Birley Shales station. From here, trains will go on to a final terminus at Miry Pools, just over a mile from the current railway terminus at Silverdale. The first-time visitors to this area (and your author was one of them) took away many impressions. Amongst those what there are few civil engineering issues, certainly as far as Birley Shales. Secondly, the gentle climb should make a nice challenge for the engines, but not so much as to be scary - typically, the climb is around 1 in 50. Thirdly, the landscape changes rapidly from the rather "post-industrial" environs of Apedale to rolling countryside; from Miry Pools, we could see hills which - a knowledgeable individual informed us - were in Wales. One member claimed he could see a train climbing to the top of Snowdon, but we didn't believe him because - as everyone knows - the Snowdon Mountain Railway doesn't run in January. The issue of curvature of the Earth wasn't on his side, either. As ever, get in touch
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