Easter Monday

Our target for the day was the Battlefield Line. 


We'd seen moorings at Shenton which were apparently designed for customers of the steam railway, but annoyingly found that BW had put up signs saying that mooring was no longer allowed (as from March 2012), so we had to moor some way up the canal and walk quite a way up narrow country roads to get back to the station. 


After a coffee in the nice little station, manned by friendly staff, the next train puffed noisily into sight: 

The small group of customers that had assembled, boarded while the engine decoupled and puffed around to the other end of the four-carriage train. Sadly for the staff running the services,  the Easter weather had kept the crowds away, but it did mean that we had plenty of choice of seating in any of the four carriages. 


After a brief stop at Market Bosworth we continued on the few miles to Shackerstone - the current northerly end of the line. 
We'd decided to skip the next return train and wait for the last train of the day to go back to Shenton. This left us plenty of time to wander around the station with its little shops and Victorian style tea rooms/cafe. 


The rail-side staff were ensuring that all passengers were safe, but were reasonably relaxed about allowing us to video the big powerful machinery at close quarters: 

As well as enjoying the station, had we known, it would have been worthwhile walking down to the canal and looking at the village, which we were to see later, was very pretty. In due course the train arrived back and we boarded for the 20-minute return journey to Shenton, with a carriage almost all to ourselves. As we walked back to the boat, the train puffed merrily back to Shackerstone on its last trip of the day:

After moving on to Market Bosworth for shopping the next morning, we enjoyed a particularly spectacular sunset as displayed on the title page of the blog.