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Many pre-Grouping steam engines soldiered on until the end of the 1950s but were then withdrawn faster than the locomotive works were able to scrap them.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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An eagerly awaited return to steam is the 0-4-0ST sold by the Great Eastern Railway in 1917. Mark Smithers reports on the overhaul being carried out at the Flour Mill. The world of railway preservation is full of stories of tragic near-misses in terms of locomotives and other items that should have survived, but for…

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Charles Fairburn took over the reins as the Chief Mechanical Engineer of the LMS from Sir William Stanier in 1944 before being quickly succeeded by George Ivatt. Brian Sharpe examines the contributions made by these two engineers to British locomotive development. The Second World War led to British steam locomotive design taking a new direction.…

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The Elsecar Heritage Railway is one of Britain’s smaller standard gauge heritage lines, but as Mark Smithers reports, the only preserved railway in South Yorkshire potentially has an exciting future ahead of it. The history of the line goes back to the year 1850 when a single-track mineral branch was opened from Elsecar Junction, near…

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Forty years ago the last surviving rural passenger branch line in Northumberland closed. This was the Haltwhistle to Alston Railway, which although earmarked for closure as part of the Beeching cuts in 1963, miraculously survived up until May 1, 1976. Trevor Gregg looks back at the history of the railway and its route through the…

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The history of the double Fairlies is complicated. Allan George unravels the story and explains why the Ffestiniog Railway is building another one at Boston Lodge. One of the most successful tourist railways in the world, the Ffestiniog and Welsh Highland, is to build a new double Fairlie locomotive, continuing the company’s pioneering spirit. Throughout…

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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 of…

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