April ~ you must be joking

Well supposed to be April but this morning's weather nearly scuppered plans for any trains running ~ certainly too chilly for the English varieties of Katie and Russell.



The van nearly lost in the snow!




And the railway on the far side of the pond buried!

Snowploughs ~ who needs one?

This edited clip is of our attempted running of one of Robin's engines after the snow fall earlier today. This is a model of a "Shay" logging engine which in real life would have been used in much rougher conditions than a genteel English back garden in early spring ~ not that Mother Nature seems to appreciate that thought! The engine manfully steamed around on its initial circuit until running into a little too much snow right in front of the camera. In the fuller version of the clip (unfortunately too large at nearly 2 minutes for downloading) the engine could then be seen to be struggling to break through ~ it was rocking in a quite alarming manner with vigorous wheel spin until the steam was turned down. After a little manual snow clearing the engine then steamed happily around ~ if it had been Thomas it may well have appeared to display a triumphant smirk at having vanquished nature.