Backtrack

I had intended a conventional (by BT standards) editorial this month but a ‘complete failure of bells and instruments’ – in the form of a computer crash – has meant that the opportunity and time to write one has not been available, so once again we h

Together with the Weatherhill and Crawleyside stationary engine-worked inclines, by the beginning of the twentieth century only the self-acting inclines at Stanley, Eden Hill and Waldridge – known as the Pontop inclines – remained of the original ser

Twenty-five years ago, after returning from a visit to the Australian railway museum at North Williamstown, Victoria, my father was looking at the photographs I had taken there and commented “Where were these built?” a rhetorical question because he

To continue with the history of the Hundred of Hoo Railway on to the Isle of Grain, the line was opened in 1882. It ran for eleven miles from Hoo Junction, around three miles east of Gravesend, across the Hoo Peninsula and over a creek on to the lone

At the beginning of the nineteenth century political and social power in Britain lay largely with an hereditary elite consisting of men whose wealth was based on their ownership of land. This elite included a small and highly class-conscious group of

I’m not sure whose idea it was to have a trip to Woodford and Hinton but having decided it would make a good day out, the next question was, which way should be go? An invitation to join us was given to our friend Geoffrey Webb from Bedford who had a

An intriguing headline that, isn’t it? Well, that was how it appeared in the Aberdeen Evening Express in late 1959 and I fully intend to enlighten you on what happened to cause that to be printed. Firstly, however, I need to show where the event happ

London area steam sheds provided an attractive hunting ground for the East Anglian train spotter in the late 1950s and early 1960s. They were within easy reach of home and, significantly, enabled one to see locomotives of all four English railway reg

The nineteen-part Locomotives of the LNER became the definitive history of the ‘Big Four’ railway company’s fleet and was published between 1963 and 1994. The research and publication were a remarkable and sustained voluntary endeavour by members of