THE initial 659ft of the Churnet Valley Railway’s (CVR) £1million extension to Leek carried its first passengers on October 11, just 48 hours after the first track panels went down. Greg Wilson’s USATC ‘S160’ 2-8-0 No. 5197 had the honour of hauling the first train full of invited guests over the £40,000 extension from Leek…
THE North Yorkshire Moors Railway (NYMR) pulled off what might be regarded as one of the biggest steam galas of the 2000s on September 27-29, which not only featured a hugely impressive locomotive line-up, but also illustrated how far the line’s motive power department has come in a relatively short timeframe. It was only in…
JONATHAN Jones-Pratt’s ‘94XX’ 0-6-0PT No. 9466 has entered service at the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway at the start of an extended hire to the Cotswold line. The Hawksworth pannier was trialled on a round trip on October 19, double-heading with another Hawksworth type – ‘Modified Hall’ No. 7903 Foremarke Hall – during the railway’s Cotswold Food &…
HUDSWELL, Clarke 0-6-0ST Sir Robert McAlpine & Sons No. 31 made its first preservation-era visit to another heritage railway in late October when it joined ‘Swindonised’ Hudswell, Clarke 0-6-0ST No. 813 at Didcot Railway Centre. No. 31 can usually be found on the late Sir William McAlpine’s private railway at Fawley Hill (now in the care of his…
THE A1 Steam Locomotive Trust (A1SLT) has announced it has received pledges for more than two-thirds of the £5million required to complete its new-build Gresley ‘P2’ 2-8-2 No. 2007 Prince of Wales. Since its launch in late-September 2013 around 930 supporters have signed up to the ‘P2 for the price of a pint of beer per…
“OVERWHELMED” and “speechless” were just two of the words used by Battlefield Line director Adrian Lock to describe the success of the Leicestershire line’s 50th anniversary gala on October 18-20. The Shackerstone Railway Society had wanted to mark its five decades of operations at Shackerstone with something special, and this it achieved by securing ‘Modified…
THE feature by Fraser Pithie on the Morpeth Curve (RM Sept) was a fascinating read, which allowed me to re-live my involvement in the 1984 crash. We lived at 45 Low Stobhill at the time of the 1984 crash. I loved the fact there were trains at the bottom of my garden, and my son and…
With the end of the Virgin Trains franchise taking place at 01:59am on December 8 after 22 years of running trains between London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow and Edinburgh, they’re going out with a bang!
Epping Ongar Railway-based GWR ‘Hall’ No. 4953 Pitchford Hall is back in steam after overhaul, and carrying a livery never before seen on one of the Collett 4-6-0s in the preservation era.
