The Lakeside & Haverthwaite Railway is a small railway line running between Haverthwaite in Cumbria, a few miles up the line to Lakeside which is at the southern tip of Lake Windemere. They have Furness Railway Number 20, Britain’s oldest working standard gauge steam locomotive.

We took a trip on the railway during our summer hols. They run steam trains & diesels on the single track line. Our carriages were pulled by the Austerity 0-6-0ST “Cumbria”, a steam train.

The trip doesn’t take long and pulls into the only other station on the line at Lakeside. We took a cruise up Windermere to Ambleside & back again, in time to catch a train back to Haverthwaite.

Once the train pulls into Haverthwaite, they have to unhook it, drive it round to the front of the cariages & then hook it up again for the return journey. They unhooked the train & replensihed it with water. I took several shots during the process, then went up to the footbridge to take a pic of the engine going to the front. On this particular occasion, the engine went into the siding & was replaced by a diesel.

As it pulled its new group of passngers out of the station again I realised my rucksack containging my Canon 100-400mm L IS, my Sigma 10-20mm & my Canon 300D was still on the luggage rack in the last but one carriage!

We jumped in the car & drove the few miles up to Lakeside, beating the train by about 5 minutes. As it pulled in I jumped aboard but the rucksack was no longer in the carriage. Fortunately, the guard had rescued it intact with photography gear, lucky!