News

THE Middleton Railway held a memorial event for Susan Youell, the wife of the line’s founder, at Moor Road on March 28. Susan was the wife of Fred Youell and was very active with the pioneering standard gauge heritage railway scheme from the outset, and she became the secretary of the Association of Railway Preservation…

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THE Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway’s Train from Spain has made a successful inaugural run for donors to the appeal that has supported its restoration. Large crowds defied the weather to visit Ravenglass on May 17 to see the locomotive, which was on display for much of the morning, resplendent in its Caledonian Railway blue colours.…

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Following an extensive winter maintenance programme, Collett 4-6-0 No. 7820 Dinmore Manor has been turned out in lined black livery – in time for heading the Cheltenham Festival race specials and for the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway’s Broadway opening over the Easter weekend. When built new in 1950, Dinmore Manor first entered traffic in lined black,…

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THEY toiled for 36 years to reach this goal – and so the volunteers and shareholders were given the privilege of riding on the first Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway trains into the new Broadway terminus. Around 2000 of them accepted invitations to board a series of private ‘Return to Broadway’ specials on March 21 and 22,…

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Great Northern Railway (Ireland) Q class express 4-4-0 No. 131 has been officially launched into traffic following the completion of a £400,000 overhaul. No. 131, which was built by Neilson Reid in Glasgow in 1901, was withdrawn from traffic in Dublin in 1963, and after a period in storage, was first displayed on a plinth…

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By Cedric Johns IN a move which took many by surprise, Locomotive Services (TOC) Limited operated its first passenger train – albeit a private charter – on Saturday, March 24. Hauled by a pair of the company’s Class 47 diesels, the charter departed Crewe and travelling north, crossed the border at Berwick heading for the…

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SIR William McAlpine Bt, FRSE, FCILT – one of the most important figures in the history of railway preservation, and certainly one of the most loved – took his final journey behind steam. The man, known at work as ‘Mr Bill’ and to so many as just Bill, has long been hailed a national hero…

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A £275,000 appeal to save the Severn Valley Railway’s Falling Sands Viaduct has been launched – and is being backed by Heritage Railway and our sister title The Railway Magazine. As we reported last month, the Heritage Lottery Fund has given the railway £71,800 to firm up a scheme to carry out repairs to the…

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Jubilees and B1s weren’t in all honesty the stuff of dreams for us 1950s’ trainspotters – although the former carried names that were at least recognisable and pronounceable, unlike many of the latter – but six decades later their nameplates have a following that transcends their original muted appeal to teenage enthusiasts. One of each…

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The famed works at Crewe will be a dominating force in Great Northern’s sale at Poynton on April 7, when nameplates from three locomotives built there will be jostling for collectors’ attention. They are Duchess of Kent and Leinster (LMS Nos. 46212 and 45741), and William Wordsworth from Britannia No. 70030. The Princess Royal was…

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