News

By Cedric Johns JOHN Cameron’s A4 No. 60009 Union of South Africa hit a hot spot on Thursday, July 26 – the warmest day recorded in the month – when temperatures soared into the eighties as the 4-6-2 led Railway Touring Company’s first summer season ‘Dorset Coast Express’ to Bournemouth, Wareham and Weymouth. Led is…

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Scottish Railway Preservation Society officials are pleased with their decision to repeat last year’s ‘one-off’ August programme of steam-hauled trips from Linlithgow over the Borders line to Tweedbank via Edinburgh, following last year’s results. The trips are run every Sunday through August, and this year’s new innovation, afternoon cream teas, has also brought smiles to…

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By Cedric Johns RECORD-breaking high temperatures and dry weather, which has resulted in Network Rail issuing an edict saying that main line steam hauled trains be worked by accompanying diesels, is likely to stay until the autumn. According to the Met Office’s three-month forecasts briefed to local authorities and transport organisations for the period August…

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Saphos Trains has somewhat surprisingly announced a short programme of exclusive railtours featuring restored Class 40 D213 Andania, finished in its original BR green livery. In January, Locomotive Services (TOC) Limited signed a three-year deal with the Class 40’s owner which sees D213 becoming part of its expanding fleet of modern traction based in the…

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A1 Peppercorn Pacific No. 60163 is set to return to main line traffic on September 29. That is the date when owning group The A1 Steam Locomotive Trust hopes to have the locomotive hauling its ‘The Ynys Mon Express’ from Leicester to Holyhead. At Wansford, on the Nene Valley Railway, the trust and its contractors…

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The first weekend in August saw the Severn Valley and Great Central railways remember in style and atmosphere the final weekend of timetabled BR steam exactly 50 years before, writes Robin Jones. Sunday, August 4, 1968 was the day when ‘normal’ timetabled British Rail main line steam ended. That day saw just two engines with…

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Less than seven weeks after the ‘Fifteen Guinea Special’ marked the end of BR main line steam, the public were admitted to a former depot where the roots of railway preservation had firmly taken hold.

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By Hugh Dougherty THE Peebles Community Trust plans to open a railway museum in the Borders tourist town to commemorate its extensive, but largely ignored railway heritage. The group has its sights set on a former North British Railway weighbridge office, the sole survivor of the company’s station in the town. The railway it served…

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THE Swindon & Cricklade Railway has launched an appeal to pay for the carriage of track materials to the site of its new northern extension. The railway hopes to celebrate its 40th anniversary by reaching the second town in its name. However, before it can lay track as part of the push to Cricklade, the…

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LINE closure notices were a market feature of the 1950s and especially the 60s under the Beeching Axe, but thankfully they are a rarity in the heritage sector. An exception came on Thursday, August 2 when a genuine pre-closure ‘last train’ ran on a section of the Spa Valley Railway. Diverging from the railway’s main…

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