Features

Many pre-Grouping steam engines soldiered on until the end of the 1950s but were then withdrawn faster than the locomotive works were able to scrap them. Robert Anderson recalls a trip to see some vintage steam power dumped in a remote corner of Lancashire in 1959. By the mid to late 1950s most of us…

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September 5, 2016 celebrates half a century since the final workings of the streamlined A4 Pacifics in BR service. Fred Kerr recalls the last fortnight of their Scottish operations – and notes how the future was not as bad as many feared. As a child in post-war Edinburgh my memories veered between the Caledonian hooters…

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Bill Parker’s Flour Mill workshop at Bream, which is widely renowned for its steam locomotive restorations and overhauls, celebrated its 20th anniversary with a stupendous gala at the nearby Dean Forest Railway. The event saw three of its best ‘customers’ return to thrill the crowds at one of the most successful events in the line’s…

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One of the first branch line closures by BR, the Haughley to Laxfield branch, lay dormant for 40 years until it became the subject of an unlikely revival. Peter Brown visited the Mid-Suffolk Light Railway and reports on its progress. J15 0-6-0 No. 65447 hauled the very last passenger train on the Mid-Suffolk Light Railway…

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  In another occasional series of historical reviews of ‘Big Four’ locomotive engineers, Cedric Johns highlights the career of Frederick W Hawksworth, who succeeded Charles Collett in 1941… In retrospect, the final years of Frederick Hawksworth’s engineering career at Swindon were cut short by political events beyond his control when the 1945, postwar general election…

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