News

THE Flour Mill workshops at Bream in the Forest of Dean have begun the exploratory dismantling of the Swanage Railway’s LSWR T3 4-4-0 No. 563 to see if the former National Collection engine can be returned to steam. Staff at the market-leading expert in the restoration of Victorian steam locomotives have begun removing the boiler…

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IN the year when the nation is commemorating the 50th anniversary of the end of BR standard gauge steam haulage, the Mid-Norfolk Railway has opened the latest length of its new northern extension. On Friday, May 18, Dennis Howell’s WR 0-6-0PT No. 9466, which in recent years has made the surviving section of the GER…

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While many events will be held this summer to mark the 50th anniversary of the end of steam, another date might well be considered far more important – for it was six weeks earlier on June 29, 1968, that the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway launched its first public services, in doing so giving an…

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THE Aln Valley Railway (AVR) now has two operational steam locomotives for the first time. Hunslet Austerity 0-6-0ST No. 3686 of 1948 entered public service on the line over the bank holiday weekend of May 5-7 during a Branch End 50 steam gala, marking 50 years since the closure of the NER Alnmouth to Alnwick…

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PRUSSIAN blue-liveried Peckett saddletank Kilmersdon may have often been viewed as a ‘sideshow’ at its home at Washford station on the West Somerset Railway, giving shunting demonstrations at special events. However, in Cornwall, what was the last steam locomotive to work at Kilmersdon Colliery and within the Somerset coalfield has acquired immediate superstar status, as…

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LIFELONG enthusiast and locomotive owner Gareth Evans has just landed his dream job – as the new assistant editor of Heritage Railway. As a teenager, Gareth wrote the Younger View column for us in our early years and it led him to a career in journalism, editing Coach & Bus Week magazine for 11 years…

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DORSET’S 10¼in gauge Poole Park miniature railway has been closed following a derailment in April – and a reported “strike” by 40 volunteers and resignations of its management. It was understood that several youngsters were riding on the train when it came off the tracks, although no further details of the incident were available. On…

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‘Lost’ Brunel reservoir found in Devon UST when we thought, with the opening of a major new Isambard Kingdom Brunel museum in Bristol, we knew all of his major works off by heart – another has been discovered. Added to Box Tunnel, the Royal Albert Bridge, Maidenhead Bridge, Bristol Temple Meads, Sonning Cutting and the…

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It is not often that a railway books a visiting engine for a gala which turns out to be unavailable and even rarer for its replacement to be unavailable as well. The third choice engine turned up though and Brian Sharpe reports on another successful event on the North Norfolk Railway. With two BR Standards…

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A head-to-head battle between BR and the LNER ended in a narrow victory for the former at Great Northern’s April 7 auction at Poynton, with nameplate William Wordsworth from Britannia No. 70030 claiming a narrow victory at £12,500, closely pursued by Loch Lomond from K2 class 2-6-0 No. 61790 (£12,000). Duchess of Kent from LMS…

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