114. 04.05.2012 Trainspotting (not)

114. 04.05.2012 Trainspotting (not)

I’ve got a pac-a-mac cagoule and could spend at least an hour exalting both the versatility and convenience of it. It has a lightweight yet sturdy black zip and the hood has an elasticated  drawstring which comes in useful during bouts of inclemency.  It all folds up very neatly into a pouch that can be attached via a loop to a jeans belt. It could just as easily be attached to a pair of casual brown cords or perhaps a pair of beige weekend slacks. I chose one in a sensible middle-aged dark navy blue, but a range of colours are available from colours at the gaudy end of the spectrum to those at the dull  end that people like trainspotters plump towards.

We should’ve known that something untoward was afoot as at every vantage point along the A5 between Llangollen and Carrog there were groups of excited, yet amazingly boring looking men setting up cameras on tripods with oversized and pointless lenses.  Some of them had dragged their wives out for the day and they were sitting in foldaway chairs basking in the excitement of a cup of something from a Thermos can in a layby whilst admiring their husband’s choice of cagoule and legwear. I’m assuming that they were their wives, but there again they could’ve been a match from an online dating agency (hobbies include darning,  Paul O Grady, TV cookery programmes,  reading the stories in People’s Friend and the prize crossword in Woman’s Own.  Enjoys the occasional run out to the country but not keen on mud. Favourite colours mushroom and taupe)

Anyway, a trainspotter I’m not. I might have the cagoule, but I don’t have a proper camera, a foldaway chair, a jotter and click-pen  or a wife with a face like a limestone escarpment. But as I saw the steam coming around the mountain, and to the sound of  heavy palpitations, and possibly flatulation  - I always lose control when I get excited – I  rushed across the busy A5 to take a quick shot of the train as it passed.  I did think about jotting  down the number or serial number or whatever it is that real trainspotters do, but to be brutally frank, I couldn’t be arsed and there was mud on my shoes.

This train runs on the  Llangollen Railway that  was once part of the old Ruabon to Barmouth line, one that Dr Beeching disliked and closed  in the sixties. A shortsighted crime really given the fact that it not only traverses some breathtaking scenery, but would have provided valuable transport links for this bit of Wales, as would all the other ‘branch lines’ that were more than just branches but essential for many.

Right, that’s me done. Off to do a bit of darning and check the zip on my cagoule for tomorrow’s run out.