Sam Hewitt

Scotsman fever to take Midlands by storm! Pacific Power sells out on Severn Valley

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Sam Hewitt

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25th August 2016

THE Severn Valley Railway’s September 22-26 Pacific Power event featuring the ‘Clash of the Titans’ – Flying Scotsman and new-build Peppercorn A1 Pacific No. 60163 Tornado – is on course to being a complete sell-out – paving the way for the event to be the most successful in the line’s 51-year history. As we closed…
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M&GN back after 57 years! FIRST CROMER DINER BECOMES ‘REAL’ STEAM SERVICE

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Sam Hewitt

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25th August 2016

THE eagerly awaited first North Norfolk Railway dining train to Cromer became a ‘real’ steam-hauled local passenger service – when it carried around 15 ‘ordinary’ passengers to Sheringham. The ‘North Norfolkman’ made its debut journey from Sheringham at noon on Wednesday, August 10, being hauled by the Class 20 Locomotive Society’s London Underground-liveried No. 20227…
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REVIEWS: The Line To The Stars

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Sam Hewitt

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25th August 2016

By Heidi Mowforth (softback, Bluebell Railway, Sheffield Park Station Shop, TN22 3QL, £114pp, £10, plus £2.99 p&p, or mail order plus £2.99). In addition to the phenomenal boosts that heritage railways bring to local economies, not to mention their multiple educational and cultural benefits, they also play a key role in performing arts, in terms…
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Fond memories of Diana

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Sam Hewitt

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25th August 2016

I was so pleased to learn (issue 21) that my late friend Diana Clementson had been honoured by the refurbishment and renaming of dining car No. 4779 Diana on the Churnet Valley Railway. Di and I had been good friends since we first met in the 1970s, and had many railway adventures together, including some…
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Twenty years of the Elsecar Heritage Railway

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Sam Hewitt

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25th August 2016

The Elsecar Heritage Railway is one of Britain’s smaller standard gauge heritage lines, but as Mark Smithers reports, the only preserved railway in South Yorkshire potentially has an exciting future ahead of it. The history of the line goes back to the year 1850 when a single-track mineral branch was opened from Elsecar Junction, near…
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The Haltwhistle to Alston Railway

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Sam Hewitt

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25th August 2016

Forty years ago the last surviving rural passenger branch line in Northumberland closed. This was the Haltwhistle to Alston Railway, which although earmarked for closure as part of the Beeching cuts in 1963, miraculously survived up until May 1, 1976. Trevor Gregg looks back at the history of the railway and its route through the…
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James Spooner: The Ffestiniog’s next double Fairlie

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Sam Hewitt

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25th August 2016

The history of the double Fairlies is complicated. Allan George unravels the story and explains why the Ffestiniog Railway is building another one at Boston Lodge. One of the most successful tourist railways in the world, the Ffestiniog and Welsh Highland, is to build a new double Fairlie locomotive, continuing the company’s pioneering spirit. Throughout…
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50 YEARS ON: The end of the A4 Pacifics… NOT!

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Sam Hewitt

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25th August 2016

September 5, 2016 celebrates half a century since the final workings of the streamlined A4 Pacifics in BR service. Fred Kerr recalls the last fortnight of their Scottish operations – and notes how the future was not as bad as many feared. As a child in post-war Edinburgh my memories veered between the Caledonian hooters of…
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Going forward from Cromer

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Sam Hewitt

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25th August 2016

August 10 saw the heritage railway sector expand its ‘territory’ still further, with the running of the first North Norfolk Railway dining train from Sheringham over Network Rail’s Bittern Line to Cromer. If you take into account the mountain of red tape that the heritage line’s directors had to cut through just to get the…
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Sam Hewitt

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