News

AS PART of the BR Class 8 Steam Locomotive Trust’s ongoing efforts to raise funds to pay for the heavy overhaul of its unique BR three-cylinder 4-6-2 No. 71000, the human Duke of Gloucester has signed several prints taken from a new painting by Nick Trudgian. Commissioned by trust secretary Ron Mitchell, the painting depicts…

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With no Premier League heavyweight in the mix, the nameplate category at Great Central’s March 4 auction at Stoneleigh looked on paper to be a close call for top honours. And so it proved, with the leading three being less than £3000 apart, followed by another batch of three snapping at their heels Pride of…

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By Hugh Dougherty WORK has started on the restoration of ex-BR Class 311 103 at Summerlee Industrial Museum as part of the site’s 30th birthday celebrations which fall in March next year. Originally a three-car unit built by Cravens in 1967 as one of the second batch of the famous Glasgow ‘Blue Trains’, two cars,…

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By Geoff Courtney FORMER quarry company 0-6-0ST Ring Haw is to boost the Spa Valley Railway steam fleet during the summer after its arrival at the Tunbridge Wells-based line on May 22, when it will join resident steam locomotives Nos. 62 and 72. The saddletank is a wartime product, having been built by Hunslet Engine…

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By Geoff Courtney A leading European preservationist has turned to Heritage Railway for information about a veteran steam locomotive which has a strong British connection and is part of a growing collection at a new railway museum that opened last year. The locomotive is a vertical-boilered 0-4-0T built by Cockerill, an iron, steel and manufacturing…

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THE £5 million project to build the seventh Gresley P2 2-8-2 continues to make rapid progress at Darlington Locomotive Works, despite a setback with the axles. On extracting the plain coupled axles from the packing crates in which they were transported from South Africa, they were inspected by Unilathe at Stoke-on-Trent, and found to have…

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THE Ffestiniog & Welsh Highland Railways has scooped a £464,000 Heritage Lottery Fund grant for its Heritage Trainees project. Twenty people will be offered year-long traineeships to develop their heritage skills, while maintaining the line and its rolling stock, gain a greater understanding of the broader heritage scene and act as messengers for heritage within…

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By Karl Heath Over the two days of March 4/5, an In Search of Steam photo charter was organised by Jonathon Gourlay and Andrew N Fowler on the Strathspey Railway, with resident LMS Ivatt 2MT mogul No. 46512 hauling a train of three carmine and cream Mk.1 coaches. The weather co-operated on the second day…

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ON Saturday, March 4, the culmination of over 10 years of work resulted in the steaming of the Royal Victoria Railway’s new 2-6-0 No. 5 Peter the Private for the first time. Based on No. 4 Isambard Kingdom Brunel, this 10¼in gauge coal-fired locomotive has been built in the railway’s workshop by long-standing volunteer Peter…

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IN A year in which the heritage sector is commemorating 50 years since the end of steam on the Southern Region, the Swanage Railway has its own half centenary to mark. While steam on the Southern ended on July 9, 1967, as highlighted in our free booklet with this issue – the final steam working…

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