Sam Hewitt

SteamWorks! now open at Bluebell’s Sheffield Park

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Sam Hewitt

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14th November 2018

THE Bluebell Railway’s new interactive locomotive exhibition, SteamWorks! is now open Andrew Blessley, a Heritage Lottery Fund South-East committee member, and the Bluebell’s Roger Kelly, threw open the doors of the attraction on October 19 at 1.30pm. This marked the completion of the first phase of the railway’s three-year ASH (Accessible Steam Heritage) project. The…
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Home from the front

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Sam Hewitt

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14th November 2018

Words and pictures by Brian Sharpe THE Elsecar Heritage Railway leads a relatively low-key existence, rarely making the headlines, but in a unique collaboration with local university students, during the autumn the line played host to a former main line steam locomotive for the first time. Built by the South Yorkshire Railway, the branch became…
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Mid-Hants’ ‘Black Five’ moves to Margate

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Sam Hewitt

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14th November 2018

By Gareth Evans THE Mid-Hants Railway Preservation Society has moved its ‘Black Five’ No. 45379 to Locomotive Storage Ltd.’s undercover facility in Margate, Kent. The 4-6-0’s boiler certificate expired on September 9. The MHRPS confirmed the locomotive is likely to stay there for up to five years while it awaits its turn in the overhaul…
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Double Caledonian blues

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Sam Hewitt

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14th November 2018

By Brian Sharpe Only a select few heritage railways are able to run a complete train of one of Britain’s pre-Grouping railway companies. One that can is the Bo’ness & Kinneil Railway with its Caledonian Railway 0-4-4T and two CR coaches of similar vintage. This year though, in addition to returning CR 0-4-4T No. 419…
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Feature | The final days of the Waverley Route

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Sam Hewitt

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14th November 2018

Trevor Gregg shares his recollections of both the line and his journey on one of the farewell tours.
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On the Iron Road to the Isles: The story of the ‘Jacobite’ steam service on the West Highland Line

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Sam Hewitt

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12th November 2018

By John Hunt and James Shuttleworth (hardback, The Nostalgia Collection, The Trundle, Ringstead Road, Great Addington, Kettering, Northants NN14 4BW, tel: 01536 330588, 208pp, £45, ISBN 978 1 85794 536 2). When it comes to albums of quality railway photography, it does not and cannot get any better than this. The West Highland Extension from…
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HISTORY MADE AS DUO RUN TOGETHER AT LAST: and isn’t Lyn absolutely magnificent paired with Lyd?

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Sam Hewitt

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12th November 2018

The term ‘special relationship’ – often used to describe Britain’s historic friendship with the US – took on a new dimension at the eagerly-awaited Lynton & Barnstaple Railway’s September 29-30 autumn steam gala. For it was then that new-builds Baldwin 2-4-2T Lyn and Manning Wardle 2-6-2T Lyd ran together for the first time, writes Robin…
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GWR memories in a garage in the 1950s

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Sam Hewitt

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12th November 2018

The article by Geoff Courtney in issue 244 of nameplate Knight of the Thistle from GWR Star class No. 4012 coming up for auction reminded me that this was one of several nameplates hanging for years on a garage inside wall just along the road from me. Two others were Tre Pol and Pen from…
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Volunteer’s blog: Getting my hands dirty

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Sam Hewitt

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12th November 2018

In the first of a new feature series focusing on volunteering, Gareth Evans shares his experience of his first day learning to drive a diesel locomotive at Cambrian Heritage Railways and also reflects on his 28 years of supporting heritage lines in a practical sense as a volunteer. Volunteers are becoming thin on the ground…
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LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERS: 19TH CENTURY – How the steam age began

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Sam Hewitt

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12th November 2018

Following a summer in which we have commemorated 50 years since the end of British Railways main line steam, Brian Sharpe looks back to the beginnings of steam traction. In the first of a new series, he investigates the background to how the position of chief mechanical engineer came about in the early days of…
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Sam Hewitt

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