News

PLANS by the South Devon Railway (SDR) for the construction of a new £157,000 rolling stock storage shed have been approved by Buckfastleigh Town Council. The Heritage Rolling Stock Conservation Centre will be sited at the north end of Buckfastleigh station on what the railway calls the ‘head-shunt and loop spur’, parallel to the A38…

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THE Colne Valley Railway (CVR) has successfully bid for a Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) award of £1,757,200. The bumper cash award comes after the railway faced potential eviction from its Castle Hedingham site some 19 months ago. The news of the grant on December 1 will have come as a blessed relief to the CVR’s…

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FOLLOWING its successful visit to the Dartmoor Railway last Christmas the Pioneer Diesel Locomotive Group’s (PDLG) Class 45 No. 45060 Sherwood Forester has returned to the Devon railway for the winter’s ‘Polar Express’ trains. This time around it was accompanied by the group’s ‘Crompton’, No. 33035. The two Sulzers travelled in convoy behind Devon & Cornwall Railways’…

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CARDIFF Bay station’s Grade II-listed station building is to get a new lease of life as the home of a military museum, thanks to a £2million Government investment. While Cardiff Bay (still known to many by its GWR title of Cardiff Bute Road) still serves as the terminus of short Butetown branch, its historic and…

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LONDON’S Waterloo station remains Britain’s busiest with annual passenger numbers topping the 99million mark. The actual figure, as measured by ticket entries and exits, reached 99,148,388 for 2015/16, while Clapham Junction has replaced Charing Cross in the Top 10 most-used stations within London with 32,2282,220 entries and exits. As might be expected, nine of the Top…

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THE latest addition to Scotland’s railway map – Edinburgh Gateway – was officially opened on December 9. The country’s Transport Minister Humza Yousaf carried out the opening duties, two days prior to the station welcoming its first passengers. The £41million tram/train interchange has been constructed on the western side of Edinburgh to provide easy access…

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AMBERLEY Museum has donated 3ft-gauge Peckett 0-6-0ST 1316/1913 Scaldwell to Southwold Railway Trust (SRT). The ex-Scaldwell Ironstone Quarries, Northamptonshire loco is substantially complete, but after many years of open storage requires extensive work to restore it to steam. SRT needs to raise around £1,500 to transport Scaldwell to Suffolk. With half the amount already promised,…

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VALE of Rheidol Railway’s 2-6-2T No. 9 Prince of Wales appeared in a new Great Western Railway green livery at the November 26-27 Warley National Model Railway Exhibition at Birmingham’s NEC. It has also reverted to its historic No. 1213, as carried from delivery in 1924 until 1948, and does not carry a nameplate in…

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BOTH of the two follow-on Variobahn trams ordered by Transport for London for London Tramlink in May 2015 are now in service – much earlier than the original schedule of March 2017, writes Keith Fender. The final set – No. 2565 – entered service on November 4, less than a week before the fatal derailment of…

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