With a Toot and a Whistle

As some of you may know our garden backs onto the railway line that runs between Huddersfield and Barnsley. There are two trains an hour past the house, one in each direction, and you quickly get used to the noise. The trains are only small and from inside the house they pass almost unnoticed.

So on Sunday afternoon when I was out in the garden I heard a train approach. Firstly it was going the wrong way and secondly it didn't sound 'right'. Then I saw the smoke! Unfortunately because of the slope at the back of the garden and the overgrown shrubs the smoke was all I saw, but I heard the unmistakable toot and whistle of a steam train as it approached Penistone station.

After much hunting around on the web I found that it was the Tin Bath Extra pulled by LMS Black 5's 45231 and 45407, otherwise known as The Sherwood Forester and The Lancashire Fusilier. If the scenery around Penistone looked at all like that near Blaenau Ffestiniog and I had been able to see over the fence at the back of the garden then I'd have seen something approaching the view in the photo taken by Flickr user gazzajo. I'm going to keep watching the Steam Tours webpage so that next time I'll be ready with my camera.

Our house currently doesn't have a number plaque and we have been debating what picture might go on one for a while. As we live near a railway I'd always suggested a steam train but Bryony had said that as we don't get steam trains going past the house that wouldn't work. Well now I might just get a steam train on the plaque!