News

ALL four rail routes between Edinburgh and Glasgow will be electrified by 2019 after Network Rail awarded Carillion Powerlines a £49million contract to electrify the Shotts line. The contract covers the current ‘missing link’ between Midcalder Junction, west of Edinburgh, and Holytown Junction on the outskirts of Glasgow, and is part of a wider £160million…

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WHEN DRS wanted Class 37 No. 37401 returned from a loan period at the SRPS Diesel Group it was offered No. 37703 in its place, as the former was being overhauled at the Bo’ness & Kinneil Railway (B&KR). No. 37703 needed attention but was soon returned to working order in 2015, running initially in DRS blue with ‘…

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RIDDLES ‘4MT’ 2-6-0 No. 76084 will be just days away from its full revenue-earning main line debut as this issue of The RM goes on sale. The 76084 Locomotive Company Limited’s Mogul is preparing to work the Railway Touring Company’s ‘Buxton Spa Express’ on February 25 with ‘Jubilee’ No. 45690 Leander. It is a case of second…

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ON March 5, 1967 Tyseley’s Collett double-chimney ‘Castle’ No. 7029 Clun Castle became the last steam locomotive to operate out of the old Birmingham Snow Hill station. Now, 50 years later, 84E’s other double-chimney 4-6-0 – No. 5043 Earl of Mount Edgcumbe – will mark that event with a railtour from Snow Hill to Didcot on March…

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TALYLLYN Railway completed its 150th anniversary celebrations on December 16 with a re-enactment of the line’s first public passenger train. The same locomotive as worked the first train in December 1866 (Fletcher, Jennings 0-4-0WT No. 2 Dolgoch), hauling the vehicles believed to have formed the original train (coaches Nos. 3 and 4 and brakevan No. 5), departed…

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THERE was cause for celebration at Mervyn Mayes’ Yaxham yard on December 20 when the boiler of Norfolk Heritage Steam Railway Ltd’s Hunslet 0-6-0ST Norfolk Regiment (3193/1944) was reunited with the frames after a seven-year absence. Progress on the ‘Austerity’ has continued rapidly over the past few months, most notably on November 17 when the…

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THE Northampton & Lamport Railway’s (N&LR) resident Peckett ‘R4’ 0-4-0ST No. 2104 worked its final trains on January 2 (RM Jan) before being withdrawn for overhaul. However, the former Croydon B power station loco is not going to be overhauled straight away, with owner Nick Gilbert choosing to concentrate on his other N&LR-based Peckett – ‘B2’…

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LOCOMOTIVE owner John Cameron has ruled out all chances of Union of South Africa and The Great Marquess remaining in service after 2019 – regardless of how much he is offered to sell them. “It won’t matter how many noughts are added to the bid price because there’s no such thing as ‘an offer I…

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FIVE Bulleid Pacifics have been confirmed as attending the Swanage Railway’s ‘Strictly Bulleid’ event between March 31 and April 2, the largest such gathering seen in preservation to date. The line-up so far features Oliver Bulleid’s ‘Light Pacifics’ in both original air-smoothed and rebuilt forms, with all five working to an intensive timetable to help…

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STROUDLEY ‘Terrier’ 0-6-0T No. 55 Stepney will form one of the centrepiece exhibits, alongside a cutaway replica of itself, in a new museum at the Bluebell Railway. The development follows a £1.1million award from the Heritage Lottery Fund. The ASH (Accessible Steam Heritage) museum will revitalise the way the railway displays its out-of-traffic locomotives by transforming…

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