Going up!

Apologies for the lull in postings but a brief trip to Cheshire and the Welsh Borders has intervened. One of the highlights was a visit to the Anderton Boat Lift. What an incredible structure, built when the majority of barges were still horse-drawn and thousands of workmen were quarrying salt by hand. Now dwarfed by the Winnington chemical works, it must have been an awesome sight when opened in the 1870s.

These semaphores, controlling access to the Dutton Locks on the nearby Weaver Navigation, look rather odd in their maritime environment. They arrived in the 1950s, replacing the original gas lamps.

At Tatton Park House near Knutsford, a 1' 3 3/4" inch gauge railway system conveyed coal and other goods around the extensive cellars. This was also the first house in the country to produce electricity from a steam driven generator. The legend on the wagon turntable indicate its' Decauville provenance.

And on to Llangollen and how nice to see some decent rolling stock, a Black 5. a nicely restored ex LMS bogie brake and the pride of East Anglia, a Wickham DMU. Not a GWR vehicle in sight.

Rest assured that Himself and the Guru undertook some modelling in my absence. I await photographic evidence which I will post as soon as I have it.