The best things in life are worth waiting for

I was busy working in the garden when I heard an up train that sounded different and sure enough it was the fourth gravity train of the Alan Pegler weekend. Tools down and cameras collected, I raced up to Campbell’s Platform and waited and waited. Eventually I heard it, but what came round the bend was much bigger than the head brakesman. Surely the gravity train will be hot on its heels. I hung around until lunchtime and, seeing as the family was relying on me to prepare it, I went down to the house. I was just about to go in when a lone engine came rolling past. Surely this time there will be a gravity train in pursuit? I need not have run back up the hill, it was ages before it came but as ever it was worth the wait. By the time I got back to the kitchen there were three empty bowls of soup and one that needed a quick blast in the microwave.

Goat Train, Gravity Train

It was all happening at Campbell’s Platform this afternoon. First we had a goat train and then  we had a gravity train, a particularly long and impressive one - apart from the head brakesman who showed a distinct lack of puff with his bugle. For a while I thought he was going to forget his duty. The train marked the start of a weekend of celebrations to celebrate the life of Alan Pegler OBE, the late president of the Ffestiniog Railway.