Sam Hewitt

CHICAGO transit operator CTA celebrated the precise 125th birthday of the city’s famous elevated railway (known locally as the ‘L’) on June 6. For three hours from noon normal services on the city centre loop section were partly operated using historic trains working in among more modern EMUs. Two trains from the CTA historic fleet…

Continue reading »

THE Embsay & Bolton Abbey Steam Railway may have been celebrating the launch of ex-Nidd Valley Light Railway Hudswell, Clarke 0-6-0ST Mitchell (1208/1916) into traffic during its Branch Line Weekend, but there was also a more sombre note in the air, too. The May 27-29 event took place just days after the terrorist attack on…

Continue reading »

THE engineering team at the Chasewater Railway pulled out all the stops during the early part of May to ensure that Bagnall 0-4-0ST Dunlop No. 6 (2648/1941) was available for traffic by the second bank holiday weekend. The former Royal Ordnance Factory, Burghfield, loco has not steamed at Chasewater in four years, this most recent…

Continue reading »

THE Tanfield Railway chose the hottest weekend of the year so far to host its ever-popular Legends of Industry gala on June 17-18. The event brought two former Stewarts & Lloyds locomotives back to the area where they were built for the first time. Both Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns ‘56’ class 0-6-0ST No. 62 Ugly (7673/1950)…

Continue reading »

BOTH the Great Western Society (GWS) and the Swanage Railway Trust have received top Royal honours. The pair have been given the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service in recognition of the work carried out by volunteers at both Didcot Railway Centre and in reviving the Swanage branch. The award, which is generally regarded as the…

Continue reading »

RIDDLES-designed ‘5MT’ 4-6-0 No. 73082 Camelot has been confirmed as one of the guest locomotives for the West Somerset Railway’s Autumn Steam Gala on October 5-8. The ‘Standard 5’ is owned by the 73082 Camelot Locomotive Society and usually resides at the Bluebell Railway. It has not yet visited another railway since returning to traffic from…

Continue reading »

THE evening of June 19, 2007 will never be forgotten by those with any kind of affection for the Severn Valley Railway (SVR). At around 20.00 a freak thunderstorm hit the Midlands, dumping around a month’s rainfall on the region in the space of just 30 minutes. The resulting damage to the railway’s infrastructure was…

Continue reading »

THE National Railway Museum’s LNWR 2-2-2 No. 3020 Cornwall formally took up residence in the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre’s Oxford Rewley Road station building on June 12. The 1851 building, which is known as a sister to the Crystal Palace, served as a terminus for the LNWR in Oxford until absorption by the LMS, so provides a…

Continue reading »

THE third and final member of the former Ivatt Trust trio of ‘2MTs’ donated to the Isle of Wight Steam Railway (IoWSR) steamed on June 3, more than 50 years after its withdrawal by British Railways. On the day in question 2-6-2T No. 41313 made its first tentative moves in the East Somerset Railway’s (ESR) yard…

Continue reading »

PRESERVATION’S newest station was opened with due ceremony amid high winds and driving rain at the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway on June 5, all under the watchful eye of Collett ‘14XX’ 0-4-2T No. 1450. The opening of Hayles Abbey Halt was overseen by Lord Neidpath, the Earl of Wemyss and March from nearby Stanway House, who along…

Continue reading »