News

INVICTA, the Robert Stephenson & Co locomotive that came off the production line immediately after Rocket, has been found a new home. The 1829-built locomotive was supplied to the Canterbury & Whitstable Railway, hauling its inaugural train on May 3, 1830. Retired in 1836 as the railway made a retro-technological switch to cable haulage by…

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WHILE George Stephenson’s Rocket is based in its home town for the Great Exhibition of the North, one of his earlier locomotives has stolen some of the limelight. Stephenson’s 0-4-0 Killingworth Billy – thought to have been built in 1826 three years before Rocket – is a decade older than thought, a new study has…

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CHANNEL 4 screened the fifth and final episode of its acclaimed Great Rail Restorations series on Saturday, July 7, as an alternative to the World Cup coverage elsewhere. While England were beating Sweden 2-0 in the quarter-final, the fifth and last episode of the vintage coach restoration and rebuilding series, outlined in issue 243, saw…

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By Geoff Courtney FORMER Kent & East Sussex Railway volunteer Robin Moira Wright has become a director on the railway’s board of trustees, an appointment hailed by the heritage line’s chairman Ian Legg as a “real coup”. In the 1980s Robin lived in Tenterden, where the KESR is based, and volunteered at that time as…

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Words and pictures by John Titlow Many railways have 1940s weekends, but how many re-enact a full blown battle along the lineside? The Severn Valley Railway held its popular 1940s event over the weekends of June 30-July 1 and July 7-8. One of the highlights was a battle that took place around 1.30pm on the…

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On Thursday, June 28, entertainer Jools Holland visited Pecorama in Beer to perform the honour of naming the 7¼in gauge Beer Heights Light Railway’s newest arrival. Jools lunched with Peco representatives in the Orion Pullman car after which he was given a whistle-stop tour of the model railway factory in the company of managing director…

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STEPHEN Middleton’s Nidd Valley Railway sole survivor Hudswell Clarke 0-6-0ST No. 1208 of 1916 Illingworth/Mitchell has officially completed its 22-year restoration with a naming ceremony. Based on the Embsay & Bolton Abbey Steam Railway, the locomotive’s name honours the former Lord Mayor of Bradford and local architect William Illingworth, who designed the city’s Odeon cinema…

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FAIRBOURNE Railway locomotive Yeo is celebrating its 40th birthday this year. Built in 1978 as works number 1078 by David Curwen and a half-scale replica of a Lynton & Barnstaple Manning Wardle 2-6-2T, it first ran in France on the short-lived Réseau Guerlédan line in Brittany. FR publicity officer Graham Billington handed over a commemorative…

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By Phil Marsh THE Chinnor & Princes Risborough Railway is working round the clock to have its new northern terminus operational in time for its palled official opening on August 15. The running line used for heritage services for the last two years into Princes Risborough was severed adjacent to Princes Risborough North Box on…

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A 2ft steam locomotive that was displayed at the Birmingham Museum of Science & Industry prior to the museum’s relocation and relaunch as Thinktank, has returned to steam at the Amerton Railway. Lorna Doone, Kerr Stuart Wren 0-4-0ST No. 4250 of 1922 moved from the museum’s former Newhall Street home in February 2003 on long-term…

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