Last year, an appeal was made by then general manager Stuart Williams in the Talyllyn Railway’s member’s newsletter for help with planning events in 2023, including the traditional Anything Goes weekend in July. Having been bitten by the bug after planning the Epping Ongar Railway’s 10th anniversary gala last June, I decided to put myself forward to assist with a slightly different and perhaps more ambitious event.
The weekend is pretty much what it says on the tin – anything goes! If it’s operational, it will almost certainly be out. The challenge is to plan something that appeals enough to get people to come along without a plethora of visiting locomotives; given that the railway is only one of two currently operating to 2ft 3in gauge (the other being the Corris), such practices are not really possible.
Therefore the reliance must be in the timetable and ‘extras’ put on around it to act as a lure.
Thankfully, one such add-on is that over the same weekend is both a beer festival (mercifully the responsibility of a different team) and the Llechfan Garden Railway weekend,
