Train ride.
I was invited to have a footplate ride by a friend of mine who is an engine driver on the Avon Valley Railway, near Brizzle.
Bitton Station.
Giving the engine a drink.
It's dribbling a bit.
The wording on the badge is The Royal Corps of Transport.
Blowing off steam.
… and we are off.
The coal is from Newcastle. It's smokier than Welsh coal apparently.
A Brush type 2. I drove one of these up and down Doncaster engine sheds when I was seventeen. I had trouble parallel parking though.
My friend has two heads!
The end of the line. Uncoupling in progress.
Running round to the other end of the train.
Relief engine driver about to take over.
Keep your head down and don't inhale!
Running back to Bitton station.
On guard!
Open …
… Sesame!
Fire in the hole!
Like … coal off a shovel.
The coal bunker.
Trackside shrubbery.
Under pressure.
Back to Bitton.
Fruity tooty. I wasn't allowed to drive, but my friend let me blow the whistle.
Well I'll take a boat out! Crossing the river River.
The former Cadbury chocolate factory. Now assisted living retirement apartments plus nursing home, sports centre, community centre, and restaurant, run by a local Bristol charity.
A former Cadbury shunting engine.
On the way home I came across this place set in a former nursery.
This thing is the size of a car!
He's got a splitting headache.
Did you know that the most important person is always depicted at the bottom of the pole, a-cause that's where people first look when they see it.
A wooden cannon.
I have never seen so many wagon wheels in one place. There were well over a hundred spread around the old greenhouses.
You're having a bath!
All in all I had a most excellent day out.