It’s the start of the school holidays, so for the 19th time in 20 years Maxine and I went on our annual pilgrimage to the ‘New Wine’ church conference.  Once again, there were 12,000 people camping on the Bath & West Showground near Shepton Mallet, Somerset, in the south-west of the UK.  And of course it rained.  The now Archbishop of Canterbury said that he had been to New Wine for seven years running and it rained all eight of them.  Still, it was an excellent week!

This year, I remembered my camera, and took some pictures of the miniature railway that is on the Showground, run by the East Somerset Society of Model & Experimental Engineers.  Most of the main line is dual gauge 5″ and 7¼” gauges (just a little larger than ‘N’ gauge).  Each year at New Wine, ESSMEE open up the railway for the day and offer rides for all and sundry.  I took the photos below, and especially like the Garratt locomotive.  Despite the small size of the engines, the smell of ‘steam’ is still most evocative.  And note that the sun was shining that afternoon!  Read more about this little railway at http://www.essmee.org.uk/ .