Features

With new Hitachi IET trains now spreading their wings as far as Penzance, John Heaton FCILT, assesses their performance against the venerable HST125 – a train still proving to be a very hard act to follow. IT IS mid-afternoon on a sultry summer Saturday at Swindon. Heat haze shimmers from the rails and the information…

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Cliff Thomas reports from the Front Line in deepest Staffordshire. THE Moseley Railway Trust’s (MRT) Tracks to the Trenches event made its debut in 2014 at the Apedale Valley Light Railway, a century after the First World War broke out. The formula was repeated in 2016, 100 years after the Battle of the Somme began…

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The Railway Correspondence and Travel Society is celebrating its 90th anniversary this year. Rodney Lissenden and Paul Chancellor look back at the society’s early days and how, as the premier railway society, it has adapted to change while still catering for the enthusiast. A GARDEN shed in Cheltenham may not, at first sight, appear to…

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Marking the 50th anniversary of the last years of steam on British Railways, comes the publication of a sumptuous four-volume book which tells the story of a group of photographers who went under the name of the Master Neverers Association. Chris Milner finds out more about the book and the group’s exploits. THE November 2017…

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Nicola Fox meets John Bate, an octogenarian Talyllyn Railway volunteer and employee, who has spent nearly all of his adult life working at the pioneering Welsh narrow gauge line, eventually rising up to the position of chief engineer. The Talyllyn Railway (TR) runs from Tywyn on the mid-Wales coast 7¼ miles up the Fathew Valley…

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In the three years since it reopened, the Borders Railway has become one of the great success stories, and an inspiration to other rail revival projects. Ardent Borders Railway supporter Ashley Butlin, who reported on the construction and opening of the line to Tweedbank, takes a look at the prospects for extending the line south…

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John Heaton FCILT samples loco-hauled trains in the north and the new short-formation HSTs in the west of England to provide a potpourri for this month’s Practice & Performance. The introduction of Great Western Railway’s 2+4 HST formations reminded train timers belonging to the appropriate age group of the April 1965 No. 1 hit Concrete and…

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