News

Exclusive: By Geoff Courtney THE innovative and eagerly awaited Mail Rail project in central London took a major step forward at the end of October, with the delivery of new trains, which next year will take visitors for the first time through the subterranean depths of a former railway that linked the west of the…

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Leading steam and diesel photographer Norman Preedy is celebrating the acquisition of what he describes as one of the most significant collections ever to have come onto the market. Norman, 73, has bought about 25,000 negatives from renowned photographer Brian Green, who photographed lineside scenes over more than six decades, from Nationalisation until three years…

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One of the Guild of Railway Artists most successful annual exhibitions closed its doors at the Severn Valley Railway on October 2. It followed five weeks of substantial public interest and buoyant sales of the works on display, which culminated in two paintings being sold even as the exhibition was being dismantled. The positive vibes…

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The First World War military role of one of the UK’s most prolific and famous locomotive builders has come under the spotlight after the unearthing of rare photographs of the factory manufacturing tanks and munitions alongside steam engines. This combined war and peace scenario was played out at the North British Locomotive Company’s Springburn site…

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THE Royal Victoria Country Park at Netley, next to Southampton Water, is a popular place for walking and relaxing… and near to the tea rooms and chapel is the mile long 10¼ in gauge Royal Victoria Railway, which operates at weekends throughout the year and daily in the school holidays. Trains are nearly always hauled…

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By Maurice Burns The momentous occasion of celebrating 50 years of the North Eastern Locomotive Preservation Group as a volunteer society was duly marked in fine style over the last weekend of October, following a year of planning. Fifty years on, to the exact day in the exact same room at the Bridge Hotel in…

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By Phil Marsh The Chinnor & Princes Risborough Railway has, without warning, been given just 10 working days to move seven items of rolling stock from the last 150 yards of the former Watlington branch. The written legal threat was issued by solicitors acting for Cemex, owner of the former Chinnor cement works and associated…

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THE Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway has crossed a county boundary for the first time, as its new northern extension has reached Worcestershire. Tracklaying on the extension to Broadway crossed the county line between Little Buckland and Peasebrook Farm bridges, at a point not accessible to the public. At the same time, the railway’s Broadway: The Last…

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A BIDDING war broke out when Dawlish Warren’s camping coach holiday park was sold by auction on November 3. The landmark site in Beach Road, which was set up by the GWR in 1935, and now known as the Brunel Camping Coach Park, was closed at this end of this year’s summer season. The 0.83-acre…

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A CAMPAIGN has been launched to save Hampshire’s Hythe Pier railway and its connecting ferry. Fears have been sounded that the ferry is unlikely to continue operating because of falling passenger numbers and the cost of repairing and maintaining the historic pier. However, a petition launched by Hythe resident Maggie Blight in October gathered more…

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