News

By Ben Jones More than 400 new vehicles for the new West Midlands franchise will be built by Bombardier and CAF in a deal worth £680million. Bombardier’s Derby plant will build 36 three-car ‘metro’ 90mph EMUs to replace the Class 323s on Birmingham Cross-City routes and 45 five-car 110mph outer-suburban EMUs for longer routes, including…

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THE Railway Preservation Society of Ireland’s GNR(I) ‘Q’ class No. 131 has had its 1920s black paintwork completed at Whitehead, pending main line trials. The Neilson Reid 4-4-0 passed its annual boiler exam on September 12 and has since been finished in gloss black, lined in red. As the accompanying photograph shows, No. 131 looks particularly smart…

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The Railway Children charity is holding a fundraising book launch event at the iconic House of Vans venue in London’s Waterloo on Monday 27th November. Writer and author Christian Woolmar will be promoting his new book, Railways and the Raj, and proceeds from the evening will be donated to the Railway Children for which Mr…

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TAKE two Class 50s, a forty-something-year-old Class 87, 12 blue and grey carriages, 530 passengers, a worthy cause, and you have all the ingredients for a memorable charity railtour. The Railway Magazine’s fourth successive charity railtour – the ‘Caledonian’ – saw the publication working with new partners GB Railfreight, Rivera Trains, Pathfinder Tours and the…

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THE much-anticipated main line return of Tyseley’s flagship 4-6-0 No. 7029 Clun Castle will take place on March 31, when the newly overhauled ‘Castle’ heads to Chester. Vintage Trains’ ‘Shropshire Express’ is expected to leave Tyseley Warwick Road at 09.05 and head out through Birmingham New Street and Tame Bridge Parkway to Wolverhampton. Here, it…

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THE Electric Railway Museum (ERM) at Baginton, Coventry, staged its final open day on October 8 (RM August, p11), writes Peter Nicholson. The museum was established in its final form 10 years ago and has only opened to the public on a few days each year. The number of visitors for the 2016 season was…

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STEAM and diesel charters to Scarborough may have to be reduced if TransPennine Express (TPE) proposals to build a new maintenance depot at the Yorkshire resort come to fruition. TPE has submitted plans for a light maintenance depot on the former Appletons Oil sidings to service its new Class 68+Mk 5a push-pull trains, which are…

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By Keith Fender   SIEMENS and Alstom announced on September 26 they had agreed a merger of the two company’s rail engineering businesses. This followed months of speculation concerning a merger or joint venture between Siemens and a rival company, Bombardier. Siemens and Alstom say they are joining forces to create a ‘European champion in mobility’,…

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THE launch of Great Western Railway’s Intercity Express Train (IET) into passenger service on October 16 made a rather inauspicious start. Four Class 800 Hitachi bi-mode trains were being used on two diagrams between London and Bristol, Cardiff and Swansea, representing the biggest shake-up in motive power in the region since the introduction of the…

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