Features

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…

Continue reading »

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…

Continue reading »

Steam-hauled journeys over the fabled Settle and Carlisle line, behind a variety of locomotives, are the main focus of this month’s column by Don Benn. Over the past year or more I have received from David Bradbury a lot of very detailed train running logs covering the work of various steam locomotives on the Settle…

Continue reading »

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.

Continue reading »

As a brief follow-up to Derrick Martin’s letter concerning his desire to see more vintage trains recreated, can I say how very fortunate I feel in the fact that I’ve just ridden on an excellently restored Midland Railway train at Butterley (albeit pulled by a J94) and also in the Ashover Light Railway coach on…

Continue reading »

Heritage Railway readers are being invited to own a stunning new book showcasing some of the finest lineside photography of the past four decades – while helping an international charity which cares for homeless children found living on and around stations and their platforms. Rarely have two seemingly disparate hobbies – railway enthusiasm and photography…

Continue reading »

Gareth Evans learns about Rocks by Rail-based Hawthorn Leslie 0-4-0ST Singapore – a registered war memorial that saw active duty in the Far East in the Second World War – which the Rutland museum is hoping to return to steam if an appeal for £35,000 is successful. SEVENTY-five years ago – October 17, 1943 –…

Continue reading »

Mark Smithers welcomes a distinctive addition to the ranks of Britain’s narrow gauge new-build steam locomotives – and also learns about the latest developments at North Bay Engineering Services. In issue 230 of Heritage Railway in 2017, I referred to work then in progress at the workshops of North Bay Railway Engineering Services Ltd (NBES)…

Continue reading »