Catherine of Aragon moves on

More progress with carriage and wagons on a pleasant autumn day down the Apedale Valley. A Young Members project has been to refurbish one of the ex-Woodhead flat wagons. This, it will be recalled, was described previously as the Tudor Class.

It has been decided that this will be used to convey various generators around the site for next weekend's Halloween event - this gave a considerable impetus to finishing the wagon. After all, it doesn't do to keep the undead waiting. Meanwhile, the Trench Tramway wagon is now basically complete. Funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, this wagon is typical of the vehicles which would have been on the very "last mile" of the WW1 railway operations - on the bits where it was too dangerous, or the track was too light, to send a locomotive.

Finally, the ex- Ffestiniog coach continues to progress. The project team have been fighting a bit of a battle with the drawgear - it needed to be lowered to match our locos and reflect the use of different bogies. The drawbar will now emerge under the vehicle headstock, rather than through a "letterbox" in the end of the vehicle. The next stage is to start assembly the bogies, and then we can find out if it will fit through the shed doors again!

Santa Claus is coming to town

Santa Claus is coming to town! Our Santa trains are now open for booking at here. We are running on December 10, 11, 17 and 18. Trains depart at 1000, 1100, 1200, 1330, 1430, 1530 and 1630 on each of the days. It costs £7 for children, £4 for adults if you book in advance. The trains are extremely popular, and we strongly recommend booking in advance - the last thing we want to see is any disappointed little ones on the day. If space is available on the day, the fares are children £8, adults £5. You will join the train for a round trip, and Santa normally pops up during the journey - it just depends where he's parked the sleigh. After the train ride, everyone follows Santa to the Grotto, where Santa has the all-important chat and finds out what he should be loading on the sleigh on the 24th.There's a good-quality gift for all the children and plenty of photo opportunities. Our Santa trains get busier each year - so please book ahead. You can book online here or call into our shop at the Apedale Valley Light Railway, Apedale Community Country Park, Loomer Road, Chesterton. The shop is open every Saturday until Christmas plus Sundays 9th and 30th October. We look forward to sharing the magic of Christmas at Apedale with you.

Boldly going where no man has been before......

We've hosted a private charter day for the Branch Line Society today; two trains were run, each full to capacity, and they set off to explore the more exotic parts of the railway system at Apedale. Before anyone thinks we do this sort of thing on a whim, several days planning and a nine-page method statement and risk assessment supported the whole operation. But good planning always pays off, and both trips passed off without a hitch. Participants got to ride on all the mainline trackage, most of the yard sidings (excepting a couple where the long-wheelbase coach is banned) and the Field Railway. Nobody in their right mind would take the coach down the Trench Tramway, so the passengers transferred to a small manrider to allow rides on that bit. This is very much NOT the sort of thing we do regularly, and it's unlikely we'll repeat this operation in the foreseeable future.

BUT next weekend will see trains on most of this network because it's the Steam Centenary weekend, with three locos in steam and demonstration trains running all over the place. It's looking like being a good do, so we'll be seeing you?