News

THE Aln Valley Railway’s former Port of London Authority Hudswell Clarke 0-6-0T No. 1243 of 1917 Richboro passed its boiler test on November 24, allowing it to work the line’s Mince Pie Specials between Christmas and the new year. These will be the first public trains scheduled to travel on the railway’s extended track as…

Continue reading »

A £475,000 appeal to restore and repair a canal bridge as part of the Great Central Railway’s Bridging the Gap project has been launched. Following the installation of the long-awaited bridge over the Midland Main Line at Loughborough on September 3, attention has now turned to the bridge over the Grand Union Canal to the…

Continue reading »

A FORMER chairman of Project 62 – the owning group for Yugoslavian-built ‘pirate’ copies of USA dock tanks Nos. 30075/6 – has lost his two-year battle against cancer. Graham Kelsey, who passed away in Manchester on November 30, was one of only three chairmen of Project 62, which was established in 1990, and he was…

Continue reading »

BR STANDARD 9F 2-10-0 No. 92134 – the only surviving single-chimney example – has passed its steam tests. The tests were undertaken at LNWR Heritage in Crewe on November 23, 51 years since the boiler last held pressure, and the locomotive, which last ran in December 1966 before being sent to Dai Woodham’s scrapyard at…

Continue reading »

NEW-build B17 ‘Footballer’ 4-6-0 No. 61662 Manchester United, currently under construction at the Mizens Railway near Woking, by a group from within the NBL Preservation Group, is taking shape. Recent work parties have focused on making the front end of the locomotive look as presentable as possible in readiness for the venue’s Christmas season Recent…

Continue reading »

ONE of the smallest stations in the heritage sector has just scooped a second major award. Earlier this year, the Wensleydale Railway’s Scruton station, which reopened only three years ago following a £180,000 restoration, was named as joint winner of the British Museum Marsh Trust Volunteers in Learning Award, for the heritage education programme at…

Continue reading »

By Martin Creese With the steam era becoming a distant memory and the increasing commercial realities of running a heritage railway coming to the fore, it is rather nice to see that in a corner of Wales a quiet but very welcome revolution is taking place, with a line emerging into the limelight and presenting…

Continue reading »

What is billed as the first publicly-owned British railway company to be created in a century has been launched by Tyseley-based Vintage Trains as a major and ambitious step in the expansion of its Vintage Trains railtour arm. The public is being offered the chance to buy community shares – minimum subscription £500, maximum £100,000…

Continue reading »

SWANAGE Railway Trust officials have been “staggered” by the overwhelming public response to their £50,000 appeal for money to return LSWR T3 4-4-0 No. 563 to steam – after nearly £43,000 was raised within just six weeks. As of December 3, the appeal fund stood at £42,397.22 – with more money coming in by the…

Continue reading »

By Cedric Johns FOLLOWING protracted discussions which have taken years to reach fruition, the future of British Railway’s only example of a three cylinder 8P 4-6-2, No. 71000 Duke of Gloucester, has been secured for a period of at least 50 years. Currently undergoing heavy overhaul at Tyseley, the 4-6-2 is now in the ownership…

Continue reading »