Features

Early years and construction Nottingham’s massive Victoria station was a magnificent structure – the last of the inspiring Victorian railway age ‘Cathedrals of Steam’. In its early days, the stunning overall glazed roof and elegant end screens made it light and airy – in spite of the two vast island platforms being well below ground…

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Between 1961 and 1968 an RCTS member attended grammar school on Battersea High Street and so passed through Clapham Junction and under the site of the West London Extension Railway’s Battersea Station, destroyed by incendiary bombs in October 1940. Every morning around 8.20am a steam-hauled passenger train, comprised of four compartment coaches headed by a…

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Part 1: The British years (1967-71) by Nick Pigott As the most powerful single-engine diesel locomotive in the world at the time, Kestrel promised a motive power revolution… but it turned out to be ‘too good for its own good’! Shunned by BR despite its 125mph speed potential, it vanished behind the Iron Curtain where…

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For this month’s Practice & Performance, John Heaton FCILT forgoes a night’s sleep to ride in the cab of a Class 92 hauling the Caledonian Sleeper from London Euston to Glasgow. THE formidable teal-green electric locomotive nestled against the buffers of platform 1 at Euston station is Class 92 No. 92023, a 6,760hp 126-tonne giant which…

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IT’S almost 36 years since the closure of the scenic Woodhead route between Manchester, Sheffield and Wath, but it remains a great favourite with enthusiasts, and the subject of regular proposals for reopening to provide extra capacity across the Pennines. Geoff Willerton presents a selection of previously unpublished views of the line in its final…

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From our 2016 archive: Stephen Roberts recalls a Hampshire branch line that was first proposed for closure nearly 100 years ago. For most people interested in Britain’s railways, talk of closures immediately brings 1960s bogeyman Dr Richard Beeching to mind with his controversial report recommending the closure of some 6,000 miles of track, getting on…

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