Sam Hewitt

RECENT vegetation clearance work at Poulton-le-Fylde on the Preston to Blackpool North route has uncovered the mothballed Fleetwood branch and surviving semaphore signals protecting the junction. Network Rail is currently preparing the Lancashire branch for resignalling and electrification and is simplifying the track layouts at Poulton and Salwick during weekend closures. Northern DMU No. 156440 and…

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BR STANDARD 2-6-0 No. 76084 made its full return to main line operation on February 25, hauling the Railway Touring Company’s ‘Buxton Spa Express’ tour of lines across the Pennines. The ‘4MT’ worked in tandem with ‘Jubilee’ No. 45690 Leander from Preston via Manchester and Chinley to Buxton, on the Railway Touring Company’s tour. Despite very wet…

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THE Branch Line Society’s sixth tour of rare track using a TransPennine Express Class 185 DMU will run on May 7. The ‘Vallum Hadriani Tracker’ tour will be raising money for the Railway Children charity, an organisation that provides support for street children across the world. The tour starts in Manchester and will cross the…

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TO MARK the end (for now) of the popular Class 442 ‘5-WES’ EMUs in regular service, the Branch Line Society organised a farewell tour of Southern Region lines with Nos. 442402/408 on March 11. The ‘Southern Class 442 Farewell’ tour incorporated a number of rare Central Section loops and non-passenger lines, including a visit to Hove…

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  JUNE 2-3 will see former Inverness Class 37/0 No. 37025 Inverness TMD return to its 1980s haunts with a Scottish Railway Preservation Society tour to Wick and Thurso. The Scottish Thirty-Seven Group’s Type 3 is currently on hire to Colas Rail, and will be paired with a sister locomotive for the overnight trip, departing from…

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SAN FRANCISCO’s light rail and bus operator Muni Metro ordered 175 new two-car light rail vehicles from Siemens at a cost of $648 million, with a further 40 being ordered in mid-2015. The LRVs – designated S200 SF – are being made at Siemens plant in Sacramento, California. The first two units were delivered in…

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BOLIVIA’S remaining metre gauge lines are operated by two different private owners. The former state operator Empresa Nacional de Ferrocarriles del Estado (ENFE) was privatised in the mid-1990s with two companies created, initially both owned by the same Chilean investors. In the east of the country, Ferroviaria Oriental – now owned by Genesee and Wyoming…

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THE first of 55 GE ‘Evolution’ series locomotives ordered by Pakistan Railways in June 2015 was delivered to Karachi by ship in late-January 2017. The Class 9000 locomotives are intended for freight (primarily coal) from Port Qasim, in Karachi, to Sahiwal as part of plans by the Pakistan Government to increase the amount of freight…

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US PRESIDENT Donald Trump and his advisors have proposed the complete removal of all Amtrak services that are not supported financially by the states they operate in. Only the North East Corridor route from Washington DC to Boston via New York would remain in operation with Federal government backing. This already covers its operating costs…

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