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Two venues in one day - Toddington, for a ride on the now-extended North Gloucestershire Narrow Gauge Railway, in the company of our old friend "Taffy", and a visit to the Evesham Vale Light Railway, to see two 15" gauge locomotives in action.

We had visited both lines previously - but had failed to see steam on the narrow gauge at Toddington. The line only seems to run on Sundays in summer, and last time we had been, a bright yellow Hunslet diesel had been in action. "Chaka's Kraal", the rather nice 0-4-2T, had been in steam the previous few weeks, but was temporarily out of action. Huh! Recently, the railway press had mentioned Taffy's visit, along with some scheduled dates for operation - so off we went.

The line had doubled in length since our last visit. Running from the car park, it skirts the western edge of the yard to a depot about 400 yds away. This was the southern terminus previously - today, after a pause to visit the depot and view the locomotives, we continued on down the Didbrook extension, which ends in a run-round loop, with no facilities for passengers to leave the train. The return trip runs straight back to the northern station beside the car park - a pleasant-enough run, and probably quite far enough, given that the coaches all seem to have square wheels....

There was still some afternoon left - we headed for Evesham, where, as well as the railway, there are shops and other facilities which would keep the "household authorities" amused for a while... We'd been here a couple of times before too - on both occasions, 5751 "Prince William" had been in action. I have to admit, I find the miniature locomotives based on narrow-gauge practice much more satisfying - I suppose because they are less obviously models.

Today I was in luck - there were two such locomotives out on the line. "St. Egwin" was built for the line at the Exmoor Steam Railway's workshops, and is a little unusual in that it has been built as an 0-4-0, with side tanks and a tender. The other active locomotive was "Dougal", built by Severn-Lamb in 1970 for the railway at Longleat. "It could hardly manage three coaches when we got it". It was doing OK today!

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Links:

• Toddington Narrow Gauge Railway
• Evesham Vale Light Railway

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