Sam Hewitt

By Geoff Courtney IT MAY be just a half mile long, but the Derwent Valley Light Railway in York is pulling out all the stops on March 25, when it will be celebrating the silver jubilee of the launch of its regular passenger service. It was in March 1993 that preservationists launched the service on…

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BIG-hearted supporters of the Severn Valley Railway raised £10,000 in just a week following the launch of an emergency appeal to rectify damage by graffiti vandals to a pair of coaches. The Severn Valley Railway Charitable Trust launched the appeal to meet the costs of rectifying the damage caused when vandals sprayed paint along the…

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By Paul Lewin LAST year was one of great progress for the Ffestiniog Railway’s 1867-built ‘Large England’ 0-4-0STT Welsh Pony. This locomotive had a working life of around 75 years – and has been awaiting its turn for restoration to service for a further 75 years. When it was withdrawn in 1939, with a defective…

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ST AUSTELL’S historic GWR station footbridge may make a 330-mile journey to a new home on the Bala Lake Railway. The footbridge may be re-erected at the 2ft gauge line’s western terminus of Llanuwchllyn. While St Austell residents have lost their battle to keep the wooden footbridge in situ in their town, Network Rail has…

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THE Middleton Railway has discovered that it has had an imposter in its midst for many years. Ever since the industrial railway’s Engine House museum opened in 2007, a small 4wDM , on loan from the National Coal Mining Museum at the site of Caphouse colliery, has been on display HE6273 was built in 1965…

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CAMBRIAN Heritage Railways is set to be given a £120,000 grant from Oswestry Town Council to develop a tourist line to Weston. Councillors have indicated support for the revivalists’ plan to run 1¼ miles from the former Cambrian Railways headquarters building at the town centre station in Oswald Road south to Weston, where a visitor…

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By Geoff Courtney A memorial headstone to a hero steam train driver has been unveiled more than half a century after he had been buried in an unmarked grave. The memorial, which features an engraving of a George Cross in recognition of him being awarded the prestigious medal for his life-saving actions, has been paid…

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DETAILS of the National Railway Museum’s planned £50 million refurbishment and expansion have emerged. The York museum is busy fine-tuning a seven-year masterplan aimed at reinforcing its place as one of Britain’s leading tourist attractions. The blueprint is based around closing and diverting Leeman Road, which currently divides the museum in two, leaving both sides…

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