A TRAIN enthusiast is hoping to lay a permanent miniature railway track at Lackham Country Park. About 90 parents and youngsters enjoyed rides on Peter Sheppard's two locomotives over the Easter weekend.

The 43-year-old, of Frome Road, Trowbridge, hopes Lackham Country Park will submit a planning application to make it a permanent fixture over the coming months.

If permission is granted, it will be full steam ahead, with Mr Sheppard planning to transform an up and back track to one with a continuous loop.

He is currently renting track but over the next couple of months will lay his own line.

Mr Sheppard, who has been interested in trains all his life, said: "We are in discussions with Lackham Museum, Wiltshire College and North Wiltshire District Council and we hope to have agreement sometime during 2004.

"The station will remain in the area we are now and the return loop will be through the woodland area.

"We will be here until October and over the next three months I will be laying my own track, which will include a tunnel, to see how popular it is."