Features

IT has been described by its admirers as the best-looking diesel locomotive to grace the railways of Britain… and even today it still holds the record as the mightiest in terms of brake horsepower. But as has so often happened over the course of history, the most gifted don’t always enjoy the longest or happiest…

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WATERLOO station in the 1950s was different from other London termini. Substantially rebuilt by 1921, it was more spacious and, thanks to third-rail electrification, cleaner and more tranquil. But there was still some steam: as you emerged from the Underground, soft music from the loudspeakers would blend with the singing of Drummond safety valves from…

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WITH postwar shortages now over, the world was changing and Britain with it; increasing competition from roads, the growth of consumerism and the general standard of living was increasing. The railway’s response was its modernisation programme. By the mid-1960s the modernisation of motive power was almost complete across British Rail and the sight of a…

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In the third of our series looking back 50 years, Fraser Pithie recalls and considers the railway accident in July 1967 at Thirsk, North Yorkshire on the East Coast Main Line. An unintended situation arising from BR’s Modernisation Programme played a central part in the accident, but a potentially more severe outcome was also surely…

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On September 4, 1967, Nottingham Victoria station bade farewell to its last passenger. In the first of a two-part feature to mark the 50th anniversary of the closure of a much loved station, Robin Stewart-Smith looks at the years from construction to the start of the Second World War in 1939. Early years and construction…

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Fifty years ago, July 1967 marked the end of steam on BR’s Southern Region. Keith Farr recalls some of the outstanding performances on the former LSW main line out of London Waterloo. WATERLOO station in the 1950s was different from other London termini. Substantially rebuilt by 1921, it was more spacious and, thanks to third-rail…

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