Features

The Settle and Carlisle Line is one of the great railway journeys in England, and thousands will have happy memories of the line. Maurice Burns has documented his many visits to the line – including 100-mile round trips by cycle – to record BR steam in a new book called A Passion for Steam on…

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Operating largely out of public view, the Railway Heritage Trust (RHT) plays a vital role, working with the modern railway to protect and conserve Britain’s historic railway buildings and structures. Ben Jones met RHT executive director Andy Savage to find out more. NO COUNTRY in the world has a richer railway heritage than Britain. As…

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Howard Johnston meets Vic Mitchell, a preservation pioneer, and owner and co-author of hundreds of Middleton Press books. Aged 84, he is showing absolutely no signs of slowing down. VIC Mitchell is a remarkable figure in railway publishing. Who else can claim to have made his mark with 617 publications – and the number is…

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Extending London’s Tube and Overground services for overnight operation needed considerable planning as well as input from the British Transport Police and TfL staff. Almost two years on from its introduction, Peter Brown looks at the processes needed to give Londoners a night-time rail service to be proud of – and a safe one. Transport…

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As major projects begin to deliver big changes, Ben Jones summarises some of the key amendments that took effect from May 20. WIDELY touted as the biggest timetable change in living memory, the weekend of May 20-21 saw thousands of train services altered as various new routes and enhancement projects start to come to fruition.…

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Before the construction of powerful Pacifics and 4-6-0s by the ‘Big Four’, pre-Grouping 4-4-0s handled large swathes of passenger traffic. Keith Farr looks at performances of such locos under British Railways in the 1950s and ‘60s. This year will see numerous articles about the end of regular BR standard-gauge steam working half-a-century ago. Many such…

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Plans to reopen the Colne to Skipton line – which closed nearly 50 years ago – are gathering pace. Reinstatement would benefit passengers, with new and faster journey opportunities between parts of Lancashire and Yorkshire, but also cut journey times for freight traffic and move it away from routes already nearing capacity. Graeme Pickering takes…

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A host of events with railway connections are set to mark 100 years since the end of the First World War. Craig Amess reports. This year sees the centenary of the end of the First World War. Railways played a crucial and differing role in each of the two major global conflicts of the 20th…

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The locomotives owned by Dinmore Manor Locomotive Ltd have earned themselves a reputation for reliability and good performance during their various spells in traffic. Yet their owning group retains a relatively low profile, conducting impressive feats largely ‘under the radar’. Gary Boyd-Hope went to meet them. On June 7 last year Collett ‘Manor’ No. 7820…

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