Thompson Park Miniature Railway.

Burnley, Lancashire, UK.

July 2026 newsletter

So, we are right in the thick of summer running complete with Wednesday running to cover school holidays. This is when we see the general demographic of our passengers change as Grandparents are often in charge of the grandchildren.

The weather has been so hot and dry it brings other problems. We are wary of track issues with the heat in the parts of our railway which are exposed to hot sun all day, this would probably cover about half our railway with the other half in the shade of the trees in the woods which our main line covers.

The heat and lack of rain has caused issues with our gardens with much watering having to be carried out mainly using watering cans. This became such a problem John and I built a rail mounted bogie utilising 2 large water containers which we could simply pull along to the gardens where the water is needed, much better as we can access all areas now.

It may be noticed that the bogie has a brush attached, the remains of a track cleaning experiment in the past, we decided to leave it on, why not!

We have also fitted a 250-litre water butt to catch any rainfall we get for re-use.

Turnouts (points) continue to pose problems, saying this quietly but not the station throat ones, another was failing to return itself to a normal position and it does need a new spring fitting in its innards. We will have to do this on a Wednesday morning.

Running for us has been very haphazard and is totally controlled by the weather. the weekend prior to this one was poor weather for both days and this means that the Park is devoid of people and we basically don’t run at all or very little then the next session we are overrun with people as the weather goes back hot and sunny again. This puts a lot of pressure on not only the rolling stock and all the infrastructure but also the volunteers running the railway.

Not over much to report at this time of year as basically it is all about running and all we can do maintenance wise is keep up with the jobs we have to do to facilitate that running.

Let’s hope the good weather holds and don’t forget to visit our little railway if that is possible.