News

THE Tarka Valley Railway has been granted a lease by Devon County Council to occupy the first quarter mile of the former Southern Railway trackbed from Torrington towards Bideford. The lease, signed after many years of talks, is for an initial 12 years and is seen as a significant development in the railway’s goal to…

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THE Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway is to spend £90,000 on measures to protect its accident-prone Broadway bridge from collisions, amidst fears that it is only a matter of time before someone is killed. An old saying runs that lightning never strikes twice. Sadly, that is not true for lorries and the bridge which carried the line’s…

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FORMER Aberdeen Gasworks Barclay 0-4-0ST No. 2239 of 1947 Mr Therm has returned to its home in the Granite City’s Seaton Park playground. The move follows cosmetic renovation by David Ogilvie Engineering of Kilmarnock. The colourful ‘Pug’ arrived back in pieces on February 15, and was reassembled in situ over the next three days. It…

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The original Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway was a seven-mile 3ft gauge line opened in May 1875 to transport hematite iron ore from mines around Boot to the Furness Railway standard gauge line at Ravenglass. Passengers were carried until November 1908, making it the first public narrow gauge railway in England, but the line closed in…

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By Hugh Dougherty Country and western singer, ‘Big Tom’, who made the Irish hit, The GNR Steam Train famous with his aptly-named Mainliners showband, has died aged 81. Tom McBride who wrote and performed several songs about Irish railways was born beside the Great Northern Railway of Ireland’s Dundalk-Enniskillen line at Castleblaney in 1936 and…

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Mail Rail has become the 100th location in the UK to receive a ‘Red Wheel’ plaque. The plaque was unveiled by Prince Michael of Kent in his capacity as patron of the Transport Trust, which runs the Red Wheel scheme, at a ceremony on May 14. The plaque, fixed to the facade of the building,…

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By Geoff Courtney Mail Rail, the new trailblazing visitor attraction in London that is attracting passengers in their tens of thousands, has appointed a new chief executive officer. She is Laura Wright, currently in a senior position at the Tate network of art galleries, and she will take up her new role on June 25.…

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By Stuart Chapman POPPLETON Community Railway Nursery is celebrating the 30th anniversary of its internal narrow gauge railway. What is Britain’s last surviving railway nursery, located at Poppleton near York, dates back to the Second World War, when the station goods yard was used by the LNER to grow food for the company’s hotels and…

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By Phil Marsh At AN Isle of Wight Council meeting on May 3, it was confirmed that the UK’s only offshore franchised main line railway will see its 80-year-old trains replaced. The news became public knowledge when representatives from South Western Railway, the Island Line franchise operators, presented an outline of its proposals concerning the…

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THE National Railway Museum is exploring other avenues of major funding after the Heritage Lottery Fund’s shock refusal to back its planned £50 million redevelopment scheme as a part of the city’s York Central rejuvenation. In April, dismayed officials of the York venue heard that their application for £13.4 million from the Lottery had been…

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