Heritage Railway

I FOUND the Great Central Railway’sWinter Steam Gala a truly breathtaking experience, not only for the performance of the locomotives and crews but also the size of the crowds that turned up. On the Friday, usually the quietest of the three days of m

PLANS to celebrate the bicentenary of the Stockton & Darlington Railway in 2025 have been awarded £3,211,630 in National Heritage Lottery Fund grant aid. The award, announced on February 7, is a major contribution towards the capital costs for Darlin

A MAJOR new fundraising drive to boost plans to link the two heritage-era Great Central Railways is to be launched in March. Three phases of the seven-stage Reunification project – the aim of which is to create an 18-mile heritage line between the ou

THE Bluebell Railway’s April 21-23 branch line weekend will feature two Lancashire &Yorkshire Aspinall locomotives – alongside the first appearance of the oldest surviving Hunslet 0-6-0 in the UK following completion of repairs. Built in 1888 for the

HISTORY issettobemadeattheSevern Valley Railway’s April 16-18 Spring Steam Gala as GWR 4-6-0 No. 4079 Pendennis Castletops the bill – when, for the first time in its 99-year history, it will haul passenger trains on a heritage line away from its Didc

FOLLOWING its appearance on the Severn Valley Railway, No. 4079 Pendennis Castle will visit the Mid-Hants Railway for its Spring Steam Gala, running from April 29 to May 1. An MHR spokesperson said No. 4079 would be the only guest locomotive for the

WITH the impending visit to the Nene Valley Railway of A4 Pacific No. 60007 Sir Nigel Gresley, the NVRWagon Group’s evening photographic charter with the locomotive hauling its BR goods rake on Good Friday, April 7, sold out within four hours of tick

MODEL manufacturer Dapol has given a total of £22,500 to both the GloucestershireWarwickshire Railway and Dinmore Manor Locomotive Ltd. Dapol has produced an OO gauge version of WR 4-6-0 No. 7820 Dinmore Manor, which has been based on the railway sin

THE 15in gauge Evesham Vale Light Railway is being offered for sale at £325,000. The 1¼ mile-long railway in Worcestershire’s privately-owned Evesham Country Park at Twyford was built by Jim and Helen Shackell, who opened it on August 1, 2002, and s

SEVERNValley Railway services are being cut and voluntary redundancies made in a bid to address soaring operating costs and falling passenger numbers. The measures responding to a fall in income are being implemented after a statement to staff and wo

THE Bluebell Railway has appointed its preservation society chairman Paul Churchman as interim plc chairman following the resignation of Geoff Mee on January 29. Geoff issued a statement through the railway’s website, saying: “I am disappointed that

FEBRUARY 4, 1973 was a key moment in history when the last Class 205 DEMU departed from Alresford station at 8.21pm. Half a century later, the moment was marked when about 50 Mid-Hants Railway volunteers gathered for a ceremony featuring one of the t

AN £85,000 appeal has been launched to complete the £600,000 six-year restoration ofT3 4-4-0 No. 563 to full working order so it can run for the first time since 1948 this spring – marking the centenary of the Southern Railway and the 185th anniversa

UK heritage railways were observing increasing passenger numbers in 2022 following the lifting of the final Covid-19 restrictions – meaning regular service operations could be implemented once more. Celebrating at the year’s end was the Isle of Wight

LESS than a month after launching an appeal to fund necessary repairs to one of its bridges, the Northampton & Lamport Railway was celebrating hitting the target – and also announced it had purchased a steam locomotive! As reported last issue, the no

THEWelsh Highland Railway Ltd and ImperialWar Museums have announced that ownership of Baldwin 4-6-0TWDLR No. 794, which had been on long-term loan to the line, has been permanently transferred. It comes as part of an ongoing review by the museum of

BUCKINGHAMSHIRE Railway Centre has added an operational Peckett 0-4-0ST to its stock list with the purchase of R2 class No. 1370 May from Dr Christopher Beet, made possible thanks to funds from donated legacies. Built in 1915, No. 1370 was delivered

DIRECTORS oftheGreatCentralRailway Rolling StockTrust have paid tribute to founding chairman RichardTilden-Smith, who died suddenly at home on January 10 aged 83. His death was unexpected, and was evidently precipitated by a major hemorrhage. Earlier

THE SevernValley Railway’s Bridgnorth station and locomotive shed were disconnected from all points south on January 4.The first of three sets of points leading to Platform 2 and the yard were removed for repositioning and replacement. Preparation wo

THEWestern Locomotive Association’s new charities officer, Jon Aston, has come up with an energetic way to support the bogie overhaul appeal for Class 52 D1013 Western Ranger – by undertaking a 1013-mile run. Having started on December 13, which was

THE Narrow Gauge Railway Museum at theTalyllyn’sTywynWharf station has set up its annual temporary exhibition that for 2023 will focus on three sets of significant anniversaries being marked this year. The first of these is the Glyn Valley Tramway, w

BATTLE ofBritainNo. 34072 257 Squadron is to visit the Kent & East Sussex Railway during April and May after a‘will it, won’t it?’dilemma over such concerns as whether the Pacific was too large and heavy for the light railway. The decision, announced

WITH the National Railway Museum’s Station Hall now closed for renovations, a shuffle has taken place to relocate some of the exhibits previously on display there, with them either stored elsewhere at theYork site or moved to its Locomotion museum ou

VANDALS smashed windows and a works van and damaged memorial benches at the Midland Railway – Butterly on January 23. A dog walker alerted police when they heard the noise of the attack, but by then substantial damage had been done by the perpetrator

ACTOR, comedian andTV presenter Griff Rhys Jones is fronting a national campaign against £1.5 billion plans to redevelop Grade II-listed Liverpool Street station. The Victorian Society has united eight conservation groups to oppose the scheme by Sell

A trio of LMS ‘Black Fives’ will be among the star attractions on the Keighley & Wor th Valley Railway during the March 9-12 steam gala. Home-based No 45212 (pictured) will line up alongside visitors No. 44871 and 45407 The Lancashire Fusilier. There

MYSTERY, real ale trains, and £1 rides for children are among the eclectic mix on offer at the SpaValley Railway as winter makes way for spring. For those who enjoy mystery, the investigative skills of Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot will be useful

BR Class20No. 20166hasbeensold to a volunteer at the Brechin Railway Preservation Society, which operates the four-mile Caledonian Railway in Angus. The locomotive moved there from its previous base at theWensleydale Railway on January 18. Already op

ALTHOUGH the originally-planned March opening has been postponed, progress at the Llangollen Railway’s Corwen extension has taken a significant and instantly noticeable step forward with the station canopy roof frames lifted into place. On January 23

THE project to build a replica of a unique Hunslet single Fairlie locomotive took a major step forward on January 24 when the frames of 0-6-4T No. 979 Gowrie were placed onto their wheels for the first time. Having been shot blasted and primed by ex

DONEGAL Railway Heritage Centre’s latest exhibit comes thanks to the generosity of a farming couple from Manorcunningham, in County Donegal, who responded to the centre’s appeal for a genuine railway goods yard crane. “We’d been looking for just such

MAKING history as the first resident DEMU on a railway that was once famously steam only, Class 207 ‘Thumper’No. 1305 arrived on the Bluebell Railway on January 19 and a week later had made the journey to Horsted Keynes station under its own power. S

THE DartmouthSteamRailwayandRiver Boat Company has signed an extended contract that will see it operate last remaining coal-fired paddle steamer in the UK on the River Dart for a further 25 years following an extensive rebuild. Built in 1924 and with

A volunteer who established the Swanage Railway’s first signalling school – and helped ensure the safe operation of its trains as a signaller and signalbox inspector – has retired after 31 years of dedicated service. Alan Greatbatch, aged 68, from Br

THE EPB Preservation Group has begun steps to return its Class 416 EMU No. 5759 to operation on the main line. The unit, which is usually based at Southall and was one of the main attractions at the Mid-Hants Railway’s diesel gala in July last year,

ESTABLISHED in 1995 with the intention of purchasing a Cravens Limited threecar unit from London Underground, Cravens HeritageTrains went on to buy a retiring four-car 62TS unit that became the only surviving silver tube stock in existence. On Januar

THEWelshpool & Llanfair Light Railway welcomed a powerful diesel locomotive toWales on a three-year loan on February 1 – after it had made the 6195- mile journey from the Alishan Forest Railway inTaiwan. As reported in Heritage Railway issue 301, the

THE project to construct new BR Standard 2MT 2-6-2T No. 84030 on the Bluebell Railway has taken several notable steps forward in recent months. The Standard Class 2 Working Group confirmed that the first of the side tanks has been completed at the ex

BRIDGNORTH Cliff Railway, whichlinksLowTown and HighTown, was closed on December 21 for the foreseeable future due to a dangerous and unsafe brick wall immediately alongside. Opened in 1892, it was initially powered by water and was the steepest inla

MANNING Wardle 0-6-0ST Sir Berkeley, star of the 1960s BBCTV serialisation The Railway Children, is set to make its comeback at the Middleton Railway’s Victorian weekend on April 15/16 following a two-year overhaul. The Class L locomotive, No. 1210 o

A MILE-long section of the Midland & Great Northern Joint Railway at Hillington in Norfolk has been placed on the market. The 20-mile Lynn & Fakenham Railway was taken over by the Eastern & Midlands Railway. It then part of the M&GNJR line from Leice

THE completion of the restoration of GWR 2-6-2T No. 4150 on the Severn Valley Railway as the culmination of a project spanning nearly half a century will see it run for the first time in the heritage era. No. 4150 – which began its working career whe

THE Mid-NorfolkRailwayhasundergone a management restructure. The MNR Trust Council has recognised that the railway has grown and expanded into a multi-millionpound business with several hundred staff comprising both some paid positions and majority v

The f ireless locomotive forms a very interesting chapter in our railway histor y. With limited steam capacit y, they were never repurposed for passenger ser vices like ot her shunting locomotives were in the twilight of steam, such as the famous GWR

The first main line run of the year with passengers was the Railway Touring Company’s January 21 12-coach ‘Winter Cumbrian Mountain Express’, which started behind a diesel from Manchester Victoria on January 21. Steam came on a Carnforth in the form

ON Saturday, March 11, the Railway Touring Company will run a steam-hauled excursion to Stratford-upon-Avon from Manchester Piccadilly. A Carnforth-based locomotive will head the train from Manchester to pick up at Stockport and Wilmslow. From here,

NORTHERN Bellehasreleasedthe2023 dates for its Settle and Carlisle steam specials.The tours include light brunch on the outward journey and a five-course dinner on the return from Carlisle in the luxury of the Pullman cars. The first tour is on Satur

WHILE January was expected to be a quiet month on the main line, with only two tours over the Settle and Carlisle route taking place towards the end of the month, Locomotive Services Limited at Crewe delighted linesiders by continuing crew training,

TRIBUTES have poured in from around Ireland and further afield following the sudden death on January 16 of Noel Playfair, Northern Ireland Railway’s only qualified steam driver. The 62-year-old father and grandfather was taken ill while on duty on a

A GIANT mural celebrating the first woman to be accepted to train as a driver in the UK had been erected at Euston station. Karen Harrison made history when she applied in 1977 to BR as ‘K Harrison’ and obtained an interview from bosses who believed

SATURDAY, April 8 will see UK Railtours run‘The Last Chance?’– a charter designed around forgotten tracks and so named because some of the freight lines involved may become inaccessible to passenger trains in the future. A lack of route knowledge and

SAPHOSTrains began its busy 2023 tour programme on February 11 with ‘The Lakelander’from Rugby. Scheduled for diesel haulage to Preston for a locomotive change to steam for a run over the Settle and Carlisle line, the return was via the Cumbrian coas

The very popular Vintage Trains Polar Express season continued after two days of cancellations due to national rail strikes. On December 20, 2022, five round trips from Birmingham Moor Street to Dorridge were timetabled, the first being a new midday

I STILL havemorerunsbehindMerchantNavyClass pacific No. 35018 British India Line to cover but thought that this time I would look at the work of other locos, should readers be suffering from Bulleid burnout. No. 35028 Clan Line is also undergoing a s

THE steam and diesel eras of Britain’s main line railways will both be represented at the top ofTalisman’s saleroom auction at Newark Showground on March 18. Two Jubilee nameplates will be going under the hammer in the steam category, while a Deltic