News

THE cylinder block for new Gresley P2 2-8-2 No. 2007 Prince of Wales is now fully funded two months earlier than schedule, and considerable progress has been made on its redesign, builder The A1 Steam Locomotive Trust has announced. In October 2017, the trust launched The Cylinder Club to raise £100,000 from 100 supporters each…

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ISLE of Wight Steam Railway chairman Stephen Oates has been appointed as chief executive officer of the Heritage Railway Association. Stephen, who has been with the IoWSR for more than 30 years, has wide commercial experience, having founded and managed a number of commercial radio stations, and served as economic development manager for Chichester District…

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THE award-winning Lynton & Barnstaple Railway is planning to raise £16.5 million to extend its running line to Blackmoor Gate and Wistlandpound Reservoir after being given the green light by the Exmoor National Park Authority. On March 6, at its meeting in Lynton Town Hall, members of the park authority voted 15-0 to give the…

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By Geoff Courtney While nostalgia and memories are at the very heart of the ever-popular railwayana movement, there are many different strands that pull collectors to its core. Geography is one of them, albeit not the sort that was taught at school, but instead where one lived, where the   only ‘uncopped’ locomotive of a large…

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By Geoff Courtney While much of the recent attention about the fatal fire on the footplate of Britannia No. 70051 Firth of Forth has understandably and rightly centred on the driver, Wallace Oakes, some thoughts of railwaymen from the time of the tragedy have also turned to the fireman, Gwilym Roberts. Wallace died from terrible…

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FURTHER tributes have been paid to international wildlife artist, East Somerset Railway founder and locomotive owner, David Shepherd, during a memorial service at London’s Southwark Cathedral on March 2. Nearly 400 people turned out despite the wintry weather to pay their respects to David, who died on September 19 last year following a 10-week fight…

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THE Llangollen Railway’s spring steam gala has been turned into a major celebration of the ‘Changeover Years’ on the Western Region. The showpiece April 13-15 event aims to capture the atmosphere of 1965, when steam was rapidly giving way to diesels. The gala will also mark 50 years since BR lifted the track from the…

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THE new £7.2 million Being Brunel museum dedicated to the engineering genius who built the Great Western Railway opened on Bristol’s Harbourside on March 23. The new visitor attraction, next to the SS Great Britain, features six galleries setting out around 150 of Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s personal artefacts – many never seen in public before…

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By Geoff Courtney The country’s newest railway museum, which forms part of an ongoing £2½ million project to convert the 150-year-old Harwich Town station in Essex into a major historical railway and maritime attraction, is to open on April 15. It was originally hoped that, appropriately, David Buck’s B1 No. 61306 Mayflower would mark the…

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