Garden railway festival steams in with another success

* Crowds gather to enjoy the garden railway festival.

Hundreds of enthusiasts from across the UK came flocking to Llangollen Pavilion today (Saturday) to enjoy one of the UK’s most successful garden railway festivals.

The Llangollen Garden Railway Festival is one of the UK’s biggest model garden railway events and all proceeds from the event will go to support Llangollen International Eisteddfod.   

Around 80 of the UK’s leading exhibitors and traders were represented at the day-long festival which featured a huge selection of outstanding layouts of the larger scale in railway modelling, catered for all tastes and showed garden railways from different periods and countries.

The event was once again organised by Llangollen-based garden model railway enthusiast Keith Potts who said: “Our garden railway festival is one of the most popular in the UK.  We’ve been running it since 2021 and were delighted to return to the Pavilion for the 2025 event.  

"Garden railways continue to be extremely popular and this festival has drawn in thousands of enthusiasts and in doing so helped raise money for local charities.  

"Not only did we see some amazing model railways in action, but there were also plenty of opportunities to meet fellow enthusiasts and learn about different railway models and layouts."

He added: "Three of the major exhibitors, Pentre, Railways of the World and Indian Hill, all arranged for us to receive large contributions, which was a magnificent gesture. It was a great day for garden railways and the Eisteddfod." 

* Happy organiser Keith Potts, right.

Llanfest

* Tomorrow (Sunday) the Pavilion's summer of live music kicks off with the return of the legendary Llanfest taking centre stage in the Pavilion, from 2pm to 10.30pm. 

This one-day music festival will feature seven of the best up-and-coming bands from North Wales and the North West of England, offering a diverse line-up from rock anthems to indie tunes and club classics.

Early bird tickets are available in advance for £15 from Llangollen.net using the discount code LLANFEST25; tickets will be £20 at the door.