Railway Blogs

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.

75th Anniversary

Would you believe it ?
The Wee Train and the railway in the park will celebrate 75 years of bringing happiness to thoosands on the 14th of May 2024.

Our programme of events for this year to celebrate this anniversary are as follows :

Tuesday 14th May (The Actual Birthday)
Will be an open track day for all members and their invited guests from all the other model societies across Scotland and the North East of England.
With Margaret (the original Wee Train), pulling a train load of VIP’s from the club on her 75th birthday, will be a cavalcade of our locomotives following on.
In addition there will be engines visiting from all over the UK.
There will be no public passenger hauling on the day, but you are more than welcome to come along and see the all that’s on show.

Saturday 22nd June
On this public running day there is a civic reception.
Part of the festivities includes our provost, other council staff and invited guests, trackside at 13.00 to celebrate the anniversary.
Thereafter the railway will be open to the public for passenger hauling and all the day’s proceeds will go to a local charity fund (Kilbryde hospice in E.K. )

Saturday 12th and Sunday 13th October
Open Track weekend for club members and invited guests which will conclude the year’s celebrations.
There will be no public passenger hauling on the days, but you are momre than welcome to come along and see the all that’s on show.

Throughout the year 75th Anniversary badges will be on sale and new business cards given out celebrating all these events.

See you at all the celebrations🎉🎊🥳

From all of us at the Wee Train

Strathaven Model Society will celebrate its 50th anniversary today the 12th of February 🎉
The first meeting was held of the Avondale Modelling club in 1974 where like minded folk got together to build model aircraft, boats and table top railways. 
There was no involvement at that time with the railway in the park – that came later.  

As far as we know there are still two of the original members from that day still with us and we intend to invite them along to the celebrations later this year. 

Within today’s society we have members with 47 plus years membership – Eric C, Jim L, and Martin S. If we have missed anybody else with this length of commitment to the society we apologise for this error.

Thank you to all our predecessors and long term members who have kept the society going through times, thick and thin, over all these years. 🙏

Two old photographs 📷 of the railway have just come to light from the 1950s, one was sent to Angus, one of our members, the other was in an old file and recently rediscovered.
They both show Margaret and her original carriages from that era on the original small oval track 🛤️ in the park.

Winter maintenance 💪👷‍♂️ continues on all our locomotives and rolling stock.
Hopefully all our work will be completed for Easter holiday weekend.

From all of us at the Wee Train 🚂

Saturday the 4th of November

Our local round table annual Fireworks display is in the park on Saturday.
Come along and enjoy the fun of the miniature railway running in the dark. We will be setting up mid-afternoon getting locomotives and rolling stock ready along with distributing fairy and floodlights around the track.

Passenger hauling from 5pm till after 8pm weather dependent.
A donation bucket will be at the gate to the railway area.

See the roundtable advert and Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/StrathavenTable/ for information about the night and their timetable.

Looking forward to seeing you on the trains for our last running event for this year

From all of us at the Wee Train.

Additional running days this weekend – Saturday, 14th and Sunday 15th October – both days from 11:00 to 16:30
It looks like the sun will be out but with a cold wind

Depending on the volunteers available, we will try to also run the following Saturday, 21st October.

The last running day for 2023 will be Guy Fawkes night
Come and enjoy the train running in the dark with the track lit with fairy and flood lights across and around the track.

From all of us at the Wee Train

https://www.tickettailor.com/events/strathavenroundtable/1007603