This month...

• Complete 2010 events guide!

• Galatea 'running by Easter'
• Patriot wheels appeal raises £20K in six weeks!
• OBE for Welsh Highland pioneer
• Scotsman in wheels setback shock
• Britannia spring return – in black!

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They shaped the second steam age!

Ffestiniog Railway Hunslet 2-4-0ST Linda and England 0-4-0STT Prince cross the Cob at Portmadoc. ROGER DIMMICK

This year marks 60 years since the public meeting which not only launched the volunteer-run Talyllyn Railway but also the heritage railway movement. In those six decades, revivalists have battled against the odds to pull off an astonishing series of achievements ‘to make it happen’. Many of them are the stuff that transport legends are made of. In this special feature, Brian Sharpe and Robin Jones pick out 20 of the greatest landmarks which helped shape today’s preservation scene...
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Wheel trouble puts Scotsman 2010 return in jeopardy

THE marathon restoration of No 4472 Flying Scotsman has been hit by another problem which could delay completion of the overhaul until next year, leading to the National Railway Museum failing to meet a Heritage Lottery Fund deadline for the locomotive’s return...
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• 'The Wheel Deal' sub-section >>

Galatea and ‘Black Five’ spring comebacks

LMS Jubilee class 4-6-0 No 45699 – the ex-Barry wreck many said was 'mission impossible' – could be running on the main line by Easter, 46 years after it was withdrawn...
• More Mainline news >>

OPINION

Back in Heritage Railway issue 6, we featured two former main line routes, it was widely conjectured, Railtrack wanted to relay to ease the mounting pressure on the national network. There was the GWR cross-country route between Stratford-upon-Avon and Cheltenham, partially occupied by the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway, and the Midland Railway main line from Matlock to Buxton, which Peak Rail has since been hoping to rebuild in its entirety...
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PLATFORM - Why are there queues to enter ‘free’ NRM?

I refer to page 15 of issue 132 and the small item regarding the World Class Service Accreditation for the National Railway Museum. No doubt this is well deserved but perhaps I may, through your pages, issue an open letter request to sort out the farcical entrance policy at the York museum...
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Coming Soon-
British Steam 6: Memories in Colour - Volume 2

132 pages, £7.99 • 25 January 2010

Ron White’s second selection of images completing his photographic ‘railway walk’ down memory lane with many more rare and unseen images from Britain's railway past.

■ Pre railway nationalisation colour images
■ The Somerset & Dorset Railway
■ London Transport steam
■ Named trains of the steam era
■ Narrow gauge locomotives 1950-1960
■ Steam locomotives in Ireland
■ Built for export, British locomotives abroad

• More information or to pre-order >>

ON SALE NOW - Britain's Weirdest Railways

132 pages, £7.99 • Out Now

You will never have seen a railway book like this before. Heritage Railway editor has combed the British Isles to find the country’s weirdest railways, and presented the strangest of them in one volume.
For years, conspiracy theorists talked about a secret railway network beneath Wiltshire to serve a bunker city which would haven been the seat of government ion the event of a nuclear war - and were proved right!
The pictures are all in this book. Also, did you realise that there is a secret railway running through the fairytale island of St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall, or the remains of a complete network on Steep Holm in the Bristol Channel? Brunel’s Grewat Western Railway broad gauge was years ahead of its time - and so was his atmospheric railway - but both were edged out by market forces and deficiencies of available technology.

• Order online today - click here >>

ON SALE NOW - British Steam 5: Memories in Colour - Volume 1

132 pages, £7.99 • On sale now

The forth book in the British Steam series by Keith Langston In 1907 a patent application by Mr .H. W. Garratt led to the building of the first articulated steam locomotive. Supplied to Tasmanian Railways in 1909, now 100 years later K1 is back and at work in the UK. A total of 1,636 Beyer - Garratt locos ran on 86 railways in 48 countries. ‘Garratt 100’ pays tribute to the articulated locomotives of Beyer Peacock & Company Ltd.
The discontinued use of steam locomotives by British Railways was finalised in the summer of 1968, but by 1971 the practice of running steam special trains, had began. First limited to only a handful of selected routes, but in 1994 railway ‘open access’ changed all that.
Compiled and edited by Keith Langston.

• Order online today - click here >>

Heritage Railway Photo Gallery Updated

Many more photos sent in by our readers for you to peruse...
If you have photos you would like to share then send them to:

Email: yourpics@heritagerailway.co.uk
Heritage Railway
Platform - Readers Letters
Mortons Media Group Ltd.
PO Box 99
Horncastle
Lincs LN9 6JR

Updated pages of photos to enjoy >>

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