News

A shedful of railway memories went under the hammer at the sale of a collection amassed by a career railwayman during his five decades of service on the Ipswich-Lowestoft line. Peter Punchard joined BR in 1954 as a porter at Brampton, became a signalman in 1961 based at nearby Halesworth, and carried out various other…

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WEST Coast Railways rescued a ScotRail DMU that was derailed by a landslip on the West Highland Line. More than 1000 tonnes of stone and mud slid onto the track after the mountainside above the railway gave way due to melting snow overnight on Sunday and Monday, January 21 and 22. Two-car Class 156 Unit…

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By Robin Jones and Cedric Johns Having failed to make any progress following West Coast Railways’ advice that it would not operate any trains on its behalf after the end of 2017, Vintage Trains has announced that it will not be promoting any railtours in the first half of 2018. In a news release that…

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Words and pictures by Stuart Chapman MANY of Britain’s first railways – call them waggonways or tramways if you will – were built to link industrial sites with the nearest navigable waterway or port. Horse-drawn affairs, they were soon superseded by steam railways, which ended up taking much trade from canals and replaced them as…

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By Hugh Dougherty A SCOTTISH-based charity is offering its expertise and advice to the heritage movement on organising archives. The Ballast Trust is celebrating its 30th year of identifying, cataloguing and conserving Scottish business archives, especially those of railway, shipbuilding and engineering companies, throughout 2018, and wants the movement to know more about what it…

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THE South Tynedale Railway Preservation Society has obtained significant grant aid from the Power to Change Trust to restore PKP 0-6-0 Naklo. The £200,000 grant will also cover the creation of a new microenterprise delivering railway experiences on the 2ft gauge line for the first time. Starting in January, Naklo will be overhauled and rebuilt…

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By Geoff Courtney IT MAY be just a half mile long, but the Derwent Valley Light Railway in York is pulling out all the stops on March 25, when it will be celebrating the silver jubilee of the launch of its regular passenger service. It was in March 1993 that preservationists launched the service on…

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BIG-hearted supporters of the Severn Valley Railway raised £10,000 in just a week following the launch of an emergency appeal to rectify damage by graffiti vandals to a pair of coaches. The Severn Valley Railway Charitable Trust launched the appeal to meet the costs of rectifying the damage caused when vandals sprayed paint along the…

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