Railway Blogs

THANK YOU to everyone who supported the Wee Train over the weekend of the Balloon Festival.
We ran a record amount of trains over the weekend hauling passengers from early morning through to eight o’clock on Saturday and Sunday evenings.

We wish to thank you for your patience as we worked our way through the queues as safely and as quickly as possible.
It was great to see so many happy children of all ages enjoy their ride on the railway.

Please come back again soon , our official running season finishes on Monday the 26th of September. Thereafter there may be one or two operating days during the school holiday week.

Thank you from all of us at the Wee Train.

WE ARE ALL READY FOR THE BIG WEEKEND

We have finished all the preparation work and are ready to run our trains over the Balloon Festival weekend.
We commenced yesterday at 4pm till 8pm (but the weather was poor andthe balloons didn’t fly).

Full running Today and Sunday from 10.00am till 20.00hrs.

Look out for different carriages and “Lancashire Lad” , one of our members’ steam locomotives pulling passengers.

To help speed up entry a cash bucket and our card machine for payment will be in use with no tickets issued.

Gus our friendly Gorilla will not be driving but on display somewhere around the track.

Enjoy the weekend and have fun at all that is on within the park over the weekend .

From the Wee Train

STRATHAVEN BALLOON FESTIVAL 2022

The only balloon festival in Scotland will take place over the bank holiday weekend 26th ,27th and 28th of August, see link to their information. https://en-gb.facebook.com/strathavenbf/
www.strathavenballoonfestival.co.uk

The railway will open for extended hours all of this weekend weather permitting –
Friday the 26th 16.00 to 20.00hrs
Saturday the 27th 10.00am till 20.00hrs
Sunday the 28th 10.00am till 20hrs

We hope that the weather will be kind to all festival attendees and that it will allow us and the balloons to give rides to the visitors from far and wide

If anyone takes a ride in a hot air balloon and can take an aerial shot of the railway we would very much like to have this to put on our facebook page, website etc. So please, please, post your photos on the FB page.
We have just about finished extending the raised track and do not have a new image from above the site

Thank you to all our many supporters and we hope to see you over this festival weekend.

From all your chums at the Wee Train.

Strathaven Balloon Festival Parking

There will be NO Festival parking within Strathaven itself and the Festival would ask that drivers do not park on verges and roadsides but use the official parking locations. This helps the flow of traffic and also ensures access for emergency vehicles and public service buses.

Please follow signs along the A71 (from Stonehouse and Darvel), A723 and A726 to the park and ride.

**Car Parking is £5 per car payable at the carpark entrance**      
(card or cash)

EXTRA RUNNING DAY

Besides the usual running this Saturday and Sunday, we will have an extra day on Monday the 25th of July.

On all three days running commences 11.30 to 16.30 weather permitting.

On view at the track will be our new loco Titan 0-6-0, a replica of the locomotives used at Harland and Wollf shipyard Belfast .
H&W built this type of locomotives to move large steel loads about the shipyard, plus they exported them to Canada for moving heavy loads of timber.
Hope to see you at the park over the next three days and thank you from all the volunteers at the railway for your support.

Your pals at The Wee Train

Titan in action with more pals !

Thank you to all the volunteers working on the raised track , the last section was put in place earlier this month. Some fine adjustments are required and new neoprene pads will be fitted to each pillar top – those just need to be cut to size now.

Thereafter we let track settle and in August fit the bolts to through the bases into the concrete foundations. It is planned to test the track with some of our carriages in August and for locomotive trials by the end of August all going to plan.

Below are pictures of a few of the volunteers who were putting the finishing touches to the track last week.

BONUS RUNNING DAYS in JULY

Over the next two weeks we will have a few extra running days at the park.

Monday the 18th July-Glasgow Fair Monday

Wednesday the 20th of July

Monday the 25th of July

Running on these three days will be from NOON to 16.30 weather permitting.

Thank you to all who have supported the railway during the first half of our running season.

From all at the Wee Train.

Congratulations to one of our Junior members winning third place in the Gala Fancy Dress competition at the weekend

Sunday June the 20th is Fathers Day and we will be running several of our locomotives over the weekend but definitely a steam locomotive for Sunday, So, boys and girls, if you are looking for something special to do with DAD on Sunday how about taking him for a trip on the miniature railway this weekend ?

From all at the Wee Train

GALA DAY Saturday the 11th of June

We hope the sun will shine or at least no rain for this special day in the life of Strathaven and the park .
In different parts of the park there will be all sorts of fun for children and adults alike.

We will be running the railway over the weekend and are hoping to start earlier than normal on Saturday
Depending on the weather we could have Margaret our 73 year old locomotive in steam and pulling passengers on the day
We will also have several of our other locomotives running at different times during the day.

Hopefully we will see you in the park over the weekend as the trains will be running on Sunday as well

From the Wee Train

Platinum Jubilee bank holiday

The miniature railway will be open for part of the Jubilee holidays.
We will operate the railway on Friday AND the normal running times on Saturday and Sunday for this special weekend.
Looking forward to seeing you at the park over the extended holiday.

Thank you to all our supporters for coming out to the railway over April and May giving us a good start to this year’s running season.

From all at the Wee Train..

Thank you to all the visitors over the weekend who helped us celebrate 73 years in the park and Margaret’s 73rd birthday on the 14th of May.
On Sunday one of our juniors helped us by blowing the whistle and waving the flag for Margaret and Abberton starting the running on the day.
We received a birthday card from the SLC staff at the park and a picture drawn by a young man visiting the railway on Saturday. Please see attached pictures of these and some pictures from the weekend.

If you go to our community section of our facebook page you will find 40 plus pictures of our big day on Saturday taken by Les of the Strathaven Echo.

Thank you all from the wee train

73 years young

Oh what fun we have !