Backtrack

In 1949/50 I was serving the early years of my apprenticeship as a fitter at Angerstein Permanent Way Works, in South London, when National Service intervened. I could have waited until I was 21 and finished my apprenticeship, but a dreaded cloud of

“SERIOUS ACCIDENT TO THE SCOTCH EXPRESS” screamed the bold headline of the Mail newspaper on Monday 1st October 1888 and for good measure added a sub-headline of “NARROW ESCAPE OF PASSENGERS” In the style of the time, the language flowery and descrip

It was about two o’clock in the morning, warm and slightly humid and I was sitting on a railway rail, sipping a mug of sweet lemon tea that had been brewed in a cauldron over an open fire, desperately trying to keep my eyes open as I had been working

The Peak District of Derbyshire receives particular coverage this month with an article on Buxton and a colour feature on the former Peak Forest main line. By way of a ‘taster’ here is another photograph by GAVIN MORRISON, taken from New Mills South

Ashchurch station, on the Midland main line between Birmingham and Bristol, had more of interest than a Gloucesterrshire village might have expected. It was a junction for two branches: east to Evesham and Redditch, west to Malvern Wells and Worceste

British Railways regularly arranged Open Days at railway premises of interest, notably locomotive works. On Saturday 27th August 1960 an Open Day was held at Derby Works. Such events were always popular with locomotive enthusiasts – and it’s easy to

“Lowry looked at the Stockport Viaduct and couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He said that he was haunted by it, the millions of bricks and the ordinary heroic men who had dug up the clay, baked the bricks, loaded them, unloaded them, cemented them

In the months that followed the publication of the document Modernisation and Reequipment of British Railways in 1955 by the British Transport Commission (BTC) a number of diesel and electric locomotives was ordered. Initially, the British Transport

FROM THE PENDRAGON ARCHIVES

In Part One of this article (37/9) I outlined the background, building, opening and operation of the branches from Newton Abbot to Moretonhampstead and to Exeter via Heathfield, looked at the traffic the lines saw, the locomotives used and took a mak

For almost as long as the Talyllyn Railway has been a preserved railway, there has been a museum at its western terminus at Tywyn (named Towyn until 1975) Wharf station. Containing an interesting variety of narrow gauge engines, rolling stock and oth

Some Victorian newspapers were noted for how they could be critical, almost excoriatingly so, of the railway companies – probably the best-known of these was The Times, known colloquially as ‘The Thunderer’. Others were generally less critical except