Author: strathavenminiaturerailway

75th Anniversary

Six days and counting down to our 75th anniversary of the railway in Strathaven park. Next Tuesday will also be the birthday of Margaret, our 2-6-0 steam locomotive

But – OH NO!!!! essential repairs, limited time to do it

🏃🏻‍♂️ The Race is On !🏃🏻‍♀️

Margaret, our birthday girl next week, needs urgent work to be ready for the big day

While testing her last week it was discovered that the packing material in both of her cylinders / pistons had reached the end of its useful life.

This means stripping a large part of the locomotive’s motion and pulling out the pistons to repack them with Graphite square rope (5×5 mm).
We now await in trepidation for the rope to be arrive by mail.

Hopefully this will arrive in time to let us complete both the repacking and testing before the big day.
Fingers crossed and everything else crossed too !!!!!

Stripping the loco down took four hours and it will take roughly the same to reassemble everything.
A big thank you to Jim L who is leading this work

From all the nervous folk (and other locos) at the Wee Train

75th Anniversary

Seven days and counting down to our 75th anniversary of the railway in Strathaven park.
This day will also be Margaret’s, our 2-6-0 steam locomotive, birthday

OLD and the NEW

Below are pictures of the railway over the years and we are looking to get these turned into postcards.
The Black and White ones are mainly pictures from the 50s and 60s.
The coloured ones are from the last five years.

From all of us at the Wee Train

75th Anniversary

Eight days and counting down to our 75th anniversary of the railway in Strathaven park. It will also be Margaret’s, our 2-6-0 steam locomotive, birthday on the same day

Calling all Guides and Scouts or collectors of Embroidered badges

If you have a blanket for badges or patches here is a limited edition badge from the miniature railway.
Only two hundred made and once they are gone, no more will be made.

Available from the kiosk at the park on running days.
Cost £2.00 each. 75mm or in old money 3″ in diameter.

From all of us at the Wee Train.

75th Anniversary Countdown

Nine days and counting down to our 75th anniversary of the railway in Strathaven park.
It will also be Margaret’s, our 2-6-0 steam locomotive, birthday on that day.

Abberton our petrol powered diesel outline has been in the workshop for over a month now, stripped down, engine out and new wheels made. Painting almost complete, hopefully ready for the anniversary celebrations.
All going well she will be rebuilt on Monday .

Thanks to Graham , Tom and Angus for this work.

From all of us at The Wee Train

75th Anniversary

Ten days and counting down to our 75th anniversary of the railway in Strathaven park on 14th May.
That day will also be Margaret’s, our 2-6-0 steam locomotive, 75th birthday.

The railway and it’s members will celebrate this milestone in the history of Strathaven and the railway with invited guests from all over Scotland and the North of England.
The celebrations will include a reinactment of the first day with Margaret pulling a train load of members at 13.00 hrs.

We are expecting visiting locomotives from other societies on the day, along with our own members running and displaying their own locomotives.

As this is a special day for us and because of the sheer number of locomotives in action we regret that no public passenger hauling will take place
Members of the public are very welcome to come along and observe the excitment and admire all the different items of rolling stock on display or in use during the anniversary.

From all of us at the Wee Train

On 18th March 2024, the Early Day Motion in the image below was read out in the Houses of Parliament acknowledging the longevity of the Miniature Railway in its 75th year, being the oldest miniature railway in Scotland ,
It also acknowledges the 3 longest serving volunteers each with over 40 years service to railway.
Additionally it recognises the 50th anniversary of our Model Society, where the volunteers carry out the engineering side of the Wee Train.

On Easter Monday, the Early Day Motion was presented to the volunteers at the railway by Dr Lisa Cameron.

These jolly rabbits are excited – are you ?
Because ……

This Easter Saturday (tomorrow) is when our new running season starts
We are hoping for some reasonable weather to allow us to run the trains
We did our final testing on Thursday morning with Strathaven Castle pulling our carriages around the track and testing points and cross over before the weekend.
First trains will commence running around 11am.

We are all looking forward to seeing you at the park this weekend

From all of us at the Wee Train.

The latest edition of Old Glory magazine has an article around our 75th anniversary

It’s only 1 WEEK to go untill we open for another new season for our 75th anniversary year of the railway in the park.

Thursday was a cold wet day when a delivery of 6 tons of granite was made to the park.

I only one day our gallant volunteers managed to move and spread this around the bed of the raised track.
Two putting the membrane down, two wheel barrowing, two shoveling and two raking the granite into place, an amazing job which took us 4-5 hrs.

James, our award winning gardener from the park planted 12 replacement beech trees which we had bought to replace damaged or dead bushes. These will eventually form our beech tunnel on the back straight of the track.

See the pictures below of the finished work.

We are almost ready for the new season now.
On Monday, we will set up all the locos and rolling stock to check all the winter’s hard work and have everything ready for the 30th of MARCH our first running day.

From all of us at the Wee Train

Not bad going for 5 hours work !

Volunteers in the park on Monday, painting all our carriages.
Don’t they all look smart ?
All ready for the new season starting TWELVE days from now.

We also employed a Brickie to replace all the bricks in our turntable as they had deteriorated over many years.

We are looking forward to welcoming returning and new passengers to the railway during the Easter weekend.

Please have a look at the pictures of the finished work below.

From all of us at the Wee Train.

Neat as Ninepence – All for you

Earlier this week, with only 22 days before the new season commences, both Margaret (the original Wee Train locomotive) and her steam counterpart Eva were put through their annual steam test before the new season starts.
Both locomotives passed with flying colours and had minor servicing completed at this time.
At the same time as this testing was being completed all the carriages were checked over and the paint work rubbed down ready for repainting before the season starts.

A wee reminder that we’ll also be celebrating our 75th Anniversay in May this year

See you soon at the park.