Sam Hewitt

By Phil Marsh THE 100%-volunteer operated Chinnor & Princes Risborough Railway used the winter 75-day gap in passenger services to carry out a huge programme of infrastructure work – including trackwork for the main line interchange platform. Two major pieces of work completed have removed a speed restriction on the main running line a mile…

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By Geoff Courtney Fifteen years ago, a group of railway enthusiasts founded a society that had a single aim – to restore a short industrial line in west London that during its life of just 30 years operated under the radar of almost everybody except the most ardent enthusiasts. It was 2ft gauge, ran for…

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BR Standard Britannia Pacific No. 70013 Oliver Cromwell’s programme of railtours to bring its period of main line running to an end was to involve runs on three routes associated with the Britannia Pacifics in steam days, but the weather was to play a major part in its finale. On February 22, No. 70013 left…

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THE Middleton Railway held a memorial event for Susan Youell, the wife of the line’s founder, at Moor Road on March 28. Susan was the wife of Fred Youell and was very active with the pioneering standard gauge heritage railway scheme from the outset, and she became the secretary of the Association of Railway Preservation…

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THE Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway’s Train from Spain has made a successful inaugural run for donors to the appeal that has supported its restoration. Large crowds defied the weather to visit Ravenglass on May 17 to see the locomotive, which was on display for much of the morning, resplendent in its Caledonian Railway blue colours.…

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Following an extensive winter maintenance programme, Collett 4-6-0 No. 7820 Dinmore Manor has been turned out in lined black livery – in time for heading the Cheltenham Festival race specials and for the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway’s Broadway opening over the Easter weekend. When built new in 1950, Dinmore Manor first entered traffic in lined black,…

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THEY toiled for 36 years to reach this goal – and so the volunteers and shareholders were given the privilege of riding on the first Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway trains into the new Broadway terminus. Around 2000 of them accepted invitations to board a series of private ‘Return to Broadway’ specials on March 21 and 22,…

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Great Northern Railway (Ireland) Q class express 4-4-0 No. 131 has been officially launched into traffic following the completion of a £400,000 overhaul. No. 131, which was built by Neilson Reid in Glasgow in 1901, was withdrawn from traffic in Dublin in 1963, and after a period in storage, was first displayed on a plinth…

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By Cedric Johns IN a move which took many by surprise, Locomotive Services (TOC) Limited operated its first passenger train – albeit a private charter – on Saturday, March 24. Hauled by a pair of the company’s Class 47 diesels, the charter departed Crewe and travelling north, crossed the border at Berwick heading for the…

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SIR William McAlpine Bt, FRSE, FCILT – one of the most important figures in the history of railway preservation, and certainly one of the most loved – took his final journey behind steam. The man, known at work as ‘Mr Bill’ and to so many as just Bill, has long been hailed a national hero…

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