News

THE 12¼in gauge Exbury Gardens Railway in Hampshire, formally opened its expanded circuit (RM March p80) on April 11. The line now runs for about 1½ miles including a new section around a wildlife lake, with trains stopping at Dragonfly Halt. Part of the original, smaller circuit has been closed and the track lifted. The…

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CHRIS BULLEN, the long-time former owner and operator of Poole Park Railway, has wasted no time in establishing a new 10¼in gauge public line at Honeybrook, a farm park, which is on the B3078 road, a couple of miles north of Wimborne Minster, Dorset. The initial 1,000m of track were laid in a matter of…

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TWO volunteer-managed UK rail enthusiast societies joined forces to operate the first (and probably only) comprehensive tour of the railways in Jordan in mid-May. The tour was run by the Branch Line Society with the LCGB from May 10-15. It took more than two years of planning with local rail and tourism operators assisting in…

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JR East is planning to replace the last double-deck Shinkansen high-speed trains used in Japan with new single-deck ‘E7’ series trains, which are being delivered from 2018 to 2020. Twenty-six of the ‘E4’ series double-deck trains were built between 1997 and 2003 by Hitachi and Kawasaki; each 240km/h train has 817 seats in the eight-car…

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CHICAGO transit operator CTA celebrated the precise 125th birthday of the city’s famous elevated railway (known locally as the ‘L’) on June 6. For three hours from noon normal services on the city centre loop section were partly operated using historic trains working in among more modern EMUs. Two trains from the CTA historic fleet…

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THE Embsay & Bolton Abbey Steam Railway may have been celebrating the launch of ex-Nidd Valley Light Railway Hudswell, Clarke 0-6-0ST Mitchell (1208/1916) into traffic during its Branch Line Weekend, but there was also a more sombre note in the air, too. The May 27-29 event took place just days after the terrorist attack on…

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THE engineering team at the Chasewater Railway pulled out all the stops during the early part of May to ensure that Bagnall 0-4-0ST Dunlop No. 6 (2648/1941) was available for traffic by the second bank holiday weekend. The former Royal Ordnance Factory, Burghfield, loco has not steamed at Chasewater in four years, this most recent…

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THE Tanfield Railway chose the hottest weekend of the year so far to host its ever-popular Legends of Industry gala on June 17-18. The event brought two former Stewarts & Lloyds locomotives back to the area where they were built for the first time. Both Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns ‘56’ class 0-6-0ST No. 62 Ugly (7673/1950)…

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BOTH the Great Western Society (GWS) and the Swanage Railway Trust have received top Royal honours. The pair have been given the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service in recognition of the work carried out by volunteers at both Didcot Railway Centre and in reviving the Swanage branch. The award, which is generally regarded as the…

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