 Hello, thank you for joining me. I'm just going for a walk along the Grand Union Canal. And that was an S-Stock train on the Watford branch of the Metropolitan Line. It's been quite a while, but today we're going to a miniature railway, the first miniature railway of 2021. The last miniature railway I went to was the Nice Woodland Miniature Railway, down in Kent, at East Kent Light Railway, and that was as long ago as the first of November. In fact, I still haven't been on a public train since then, a standard gauge train since then. So at some point in the future, as the restrictions ease, that will happen. But right now we are walking along the canal, coming up to a lock, and we're going to go and find a Watford Miniature Railway. This is lock number 78, Casio Bridge Lock. So we're going to go and have a trip on the Watford Miniature Railway. I've been to the Watford Miniature Railway a few times on my Miniature Railway Britain series. The idea of the series, of course, is to visit every miniature railway in Britain, but with various railways not running at the moment, and seeing as they are running, and it's fairly local to me, I thought, let's start, not start the series again, but let's start 2021 off with the Watford Miniature Railway. And then as we progress into the spring and summer, we'll go and visit more miniature railways, ones I've never been to before. So let's go along the Grand Union Canal and let's go and find the Watford Miniature Railway. This is a very nice peaceful walk along the canal. We're almost at Casio Bridge Park. The Watford Miniature Railway is about just over there, behind those trees. But first, we're going to go under this rather attractive-looking bridge, 167, for where we find another lock. Now, before we go to Watford Miniature Railway, which is just down there, there's a cafe now I could do of getting a coffee. But the cafe we're going to, it's no ordinary cafe. It's really something quite exciting and novel. So I'll show you that in a moment. So here is the lock. Just over there's the River Gade, which we will soon see. We'll cross the River Gade when we go to the Miniature Railway. As I said, just down there. So as the canal opens out ahead of us, the cafe we're going to is called Molly's Floating Cafe. And it's this boat here. So I think this is really cool. It's a cafe on a boat. It moves up and down the Grand Union Canal. But I thought this would be a nice place for me to get a coffee before we go and have a train ride. So let's get coffee at Molly's Floating Cafe. So I've arrived here at Molly's Floating Cafe, and here we have Rebecca and Emily. Hi, I'm Emily from Molly's Floating Cafe. I decided to call this Molly's because of my dog, which I got in lockdown last year. We serve tea, coffees, hot chocolates, crisps, snacks to all the lovely walkers walking past. I've been working here for the last few weeks out walking my own dog. And Emily asked if she needed some help on the boat, and I jumped to the charts. Thank you very much, ladies. I think it's time for me to get a coffee and then we'll go off to the Watford Miniature Railway, which, as I said, is just over the other side of the canal. I've got my coffee from Molly's Floating Cafe. So they go up and down the Grand Union Canal between Rickmersworth Aquadrome and Tring. So if you're out for a walk or a cycle ride along the Grand Union Canal, why not look out for them? And you might see them. They do a great coffee and other food. So what we're going to do now, we're going to go and find the Watford Miniature Railway. Let's do a bit of fun. Let's go over the lock. And just over here is the River Gate. There's a big weir. So I thought we'd go and find that. This is quite narrow. It always feels more awkward when you're walking over a lock with a camera in your hand. So here we are. We've come across the lock. So the lock's that way. The Miniature Railway's over there. There's Molly's Floating Cafe. I need to find a bench to sit down and drink the coffee before we go to the Miniature Railway. One thing I really wanted to show you before we went too far is here. This is the River Gate. Now just up there, the Gate and the Grand Union Canal run as one. Here the River Gate comes off the canal and runs on its own floor. And it goes down a rather spectacular weir. Then from there we're going to go over a bridge over the River Gate and find the Watford Miniature Railway. I believe once there was possibly an old mill here. I'm pretty sure that there was a mill somewhere in these woods. If anyone who knows more than me knows that, please do comment and tell me. So that's the weir on the River Gate. I'm going to go find a bench, drink my coffee and then we're going to go and have a trip on the Watford Miniature Railway. So we've now just come over the River Gate. I could even see some fish inside but the camera probably wouldn't pick them out. So I didn't show them but there are fish in the river. The railway though is just the other side of the fence there. So what we're going to do, we're going to go to the station. But on the way I'm going to show you the original railway station when the railway first opens because it's quite an old railway. It's been here since 1959 I believe. It looks as though they've had a lot of them. The tracks have been reballasted recently. In fact I know it's been reballasted recently because I've seen it on their Facebook page which I do like and follow. So here's one of the junctions on the railway. So we'll soon see all this from the train. What I wanted to show you along here though is inside the original station. But one thing about this railway that's particularly special to me is it's where I first ever had my first ever steam loco for haulage. It was a loco called Trevific and it's going to be 30 years ago this September. So 30 years ago I first travelled behind steam and it was here at this railway. So if Trevific ever comes back here I should be here as well. So the original station would have been just here. This straight section of track you'd have got on the train here and then I believe the extension to the current station down here opened in about 1986. I believe if you have a look here you can see what I believe is the gate into the original station. See oh there's just still a gate there. You can see the straightness. That was the original station at a Watford Minutri Railway. Here's the level crossing. I can hear a train at the station. So perhaps what I'm going to do before we walk over to the station over there. Looks like there's a bit of a queue but that's you know it's a nice day. I'm going to wait here and see the train get passed and then we'll go over to the station and we'll go and have a ride. Unfortunately Sufford some flooding was flooded which was as you can see both the visitors have done a good job rebalancing it all on the railway after what was rather unfortunate weekend is very much back in business. So you know if you're out this way do come and have a trip on the Watford Minutri Railway and go and get your coffee at Molly's Floating Cafe if she is here at Cashierbury Park as I said earlier she's not always here but you know always worth going up to the lock to have a look because if she is they can get a coffee there. So you know it's easy to get here you can jump on the metro parking lot and get the train up to Watford Met station and come visit Cashierbury Park because not only is it a really nice railway but you know it's a very nice parkland as well. So I hope you enjoyed this video from the Watford Minutri Railway in Cashierbury Park. Thank you very much for watching. Please do feel free to like, subscribe, and comment. Goodbye.