Sam Hewitt

By Hugh Dougherty THREE options are set to be considered for the revival of the Hill of Howth Tramway, just outside Dublin. Members of Fingal Council will be presented with the three options in April, when the local authority’s economic, enterprise and tourism development strategic policy committee considers a report from the consultant Atkins Group.…

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THE Moseley Railway Trust is to hold a special gala to mark the centenary of its Kerr, Stuart Tattoo class 0-4-2ST Stanhope. The May 13-14 gala at the Apedale Valley Light Railway – five miles from where the locomotive, No. 2395 of 1917, was built in Stoke-on-Trent – will also feature a visit by the…

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TRAIN builder Hitachi Rail Europe has donated a driver’s cab of its new intercity train to the National Railway Museum at York. Museum visitors will have the first opportunity in the UK to get up close and see the latest innovations in the rail industry following a wave of investment in new trains. Visitors will…

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By Geoff Courtney One of the country’s most varied collections of steam and diesel locomotives and electric trains has come to the rescue of the makers of a star-studded big budget film due for release later this year. Darkest Hour is set in the early years of the Second World War and stars Gary Oldman…

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By Geoff Courtney When Stuart Black retired from his high-flying job as a weapons systems operator and instructor on supersonic Phantom, Tomcat and Tornado fighter aircraft, he opted for a rather quieter and slower life that reflected his family history of a passion for railways. Stuart retired from the RAF in 2005 after a 31-year…

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By Hugh Dougherty THE race is on to complete the restoration of Glasgow ‘Coronation’ tram No. 1245 in time for the streamliner’s 80th birthday. Members of the Summerlee Transport Group have reunited the tram’s top and bottom decks in the Coatbridge museum’s workshop and are working hard to complete the work by May 2019, 80…

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Amberley Museum launches its 2017 railway gala season on April 9, with an industrial locomotives day that will include public steam trains and demonstration freight runs by diesel and battery engines. The public steam trains will be hauled on the museum’s ½-mile 2ft gauge line, which has three stations, by resident 0-4-0ST Peter, built by…

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THE Historic Dockyard Chatham has sounded an SOS for volunteers to help keep its standard gauge railway running. Since the Royal Navy Dockyard closed in March 1984 and became a unique visitor attraction as the world’s only preserved naval dockyard from Tudor times, the internal standard gauge railway has continued to operate at least once…

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THE South Devon Railway and the South Devon Diesel Traction Group held a John Frood Memorial Running Day on February 25. John was a long-term serving member of the South Devon Diesel Traction Group and was usually to be seen acting as second man to the diesel locomotives on gala days. He had already achieved…

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