Heritage Railway

BRITAIN gave the steam railway to the world and has every right to beam with pride about the heritage sector – and rarely more so than this Christmas. Showing the true bulldog spirit of triumph over adversity, our heritage railways have taken their d

A SPECIAL train marking the 70th anniversary of the standard gauge heritage era is among the highlights of VintageTrains’(VT) packed spring and summer programme for 2021. Whit Monday bank holiday May 14, 1951, is widely held as the start of the opera

SATURDAY, December 12, saw public trains run on the West Somerset Railway (WSR) for the first time in 2020, in the form of its nonstop Santa Express from Bishops Lydeard to Williton and back, behind WSR mogul No. 9351. Tickets were sold pre-booked on

JEREMY Hosking’s refurbished former East Midlands-Porterbrook Class 43 Nanking blue-liveried High Speed Train made its public passenger-carrying debut on Saturday, December 12. Operated by Locomotive Services TOC Limited, the seven-coach set plus two

THE Narrow Gauge Railway Museum at Tywyn has scooped the Heritage Railway Association’s Interpretation award for 2021. The annual award, sponsored by Heritage Railway magazine, has been made for “seven decades of excellence in showcasing the rich var

THE Ffestiniog & Welsh Highland Railways has won through to the finals of the International Tourism Awards. Caernarfon station and the line’s first class Pullman carriages have been shortlisted by the British Guild of Travel Writers (BGTW) or the awa

THE Cholsey & Wallingford Railway has appealed for donations to build a £60,000 locomotive shed. Plans for a 100ft steel-framed single road locomotive shed at Wallingford were drawn up several months ago, but lack of income during the Covid-19 pandem

VISITORS to the Thursford Collection’s festive Enchanted Journey Of Light event enjoyed a rare look at the venue’s ‘forgotten’narrow gauge locomotive, Hunslet 0-4-0ST Cackler. Built in 1898 for the Dinorwic Quarries in north Wales, the‘Mills/Tramroad

THE Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway is to stage two special events over the Christmas period. Heritage Railway Weekends will take place on December 26/27 and January 2/3. Visitors can prebook journeys on two vintage locomotives: Heywood 0-4-0T Katie whi

HEATON Park Tramway will be fully operational every weekend during the award-winning Lightopia lantern and light festival, which runs until January 10. Manchester City Council has given the all clear for the trams to run during Lightopia, which is he

TWO ladies who became part of the legend that is the Ffestiniog Railway (FR) were again honoured in this year’s National Rail Heritage Awards. The winners of the awards’ 40th anniversary year were announced at a virtual presentation on December 2, th

■The Bam Nuttall Partnership Award: Greater Anglia Railways, for the restoration of the modernised Grade II listed station at Harlow Town. Highly commended: Pitlochry salt store, Taunton Great Western Hotel ■The NRHA Craft Skills Award, recognising

THE Swanage Railway’s Save Our Service (SOS) appeal designed to replace income lost due to the Covid-19 restrictions and allow the line to survive through the winter months, has been making rapid strides towards its £360,000 target. At the start of D

THE Hull & Barnsley Railway Stock Fund (HBRSF) has made a significant step forward with its project to return its historic four-wheeled carriage No. 1 to operational condition following the acquisition of a suitable chassis. Progress has also been ma

BARNSLEY Council has reaffirmed its commitment to securing the future of the closed Elsecar Heritage Railway after its operator surrendered its lease. As reported in issue 272, officials of the trust which runs the mile-long line handed back the leas

A THIRD Pacer unit and a Class 117 DMU have been moved to the Mid-Norfolk Railway (MNR) to boost its expandinging railbus fleet. December 9 saw Class 144‘Pacer’ No. 144018 delivered following its withdrawal from main line service and acquisition fr

THE Spa Valley Railway has boosted its steam fleet this winter with the hire of GWR 0-6-0PT No. 6435 from the Bodmin & Wenford Railway (BWR). The 1937-built 64XX was due to arrive in Tunbridge Wells on December 3, where it is set to remain until the

ONE of the world’s greatest private collections of early railway literature, put together over decades by former Flying Scotsmanowner and life-long steam enthusiast Sir William McAlpine, went under the hammer for £160,000 at a high-profile and eagerl

A DRIVE by Donegal Railway Heritage Centre to keep the museum in the public eye during lockdown, has resulted in the rediscovery of a‘lost’ County Donegal Railways railcar halt between Barnesmore Halt and Lough Eske station on the railway’s Stranorla

SWANAGE Railway volunteers have won a Government grant of up to £50,000 to pay for an updated feasibility study and business case aimed at reinstating a public service to reconnect the resort with the main line at Wareham. South Dorset MP Richard Dra

PLANS to run a 3ft gauge steam train over nearly 1.5km (0.9 miles) of newly-laid narrow gauge track at Maam Cross Station on the abandoned Galway-Clifden line in 2020, had to be cancelled because of Covid-19 restrictions. Project chairman Jim Deega

AN APPEAL to fund the restoration of a pair of historically-important bogie hopper wagons has been launched by the owning group of Severn Valley Railway-based LMS 8F 2-8-0 No. 48773. The Stanier 8F Locomotive Society, which has owned No. 48773 for mo

THE National Railway Museum has revealed it expects to announce early in 2021 the successful bidders for a number of items on its latest disposal list – including 0-4-0ST Handyman. The 1900-built 3ft gauge Hudswell Clarke locomotivehas been stored

OXFORD’S LNWR Rewley Road station has for nearly two decades been the centrepiece of the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre. Now an associated railway swing bridge is to be restored after local conservationists raised £900,000 following years of campaign

AFTER three decades of slumber, dismantled and stored on wagons at Toddington on the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway, BR Standard 4MT 2-6-0 No. 76077 quietly slipped from public consciousness as a patina of rust developed over its remains. Howev

CLASS 125 High Speed Train (HST) power car No. 43018 was delivered by road to Crewe Heritage Centre on October 21 after it was donated by leasing company Angel Trains. Cosmetic restoration has already started on the heavily stripped car and replaceme

NETWORK Rail has begun the restoration of George Stephenson’s Gauxholme viaduct on the Calder Valley Line in Todmorden as part of the £3.7 million Great North Rail Project. The restoration scheme also included the reconstruction of nearby Taylors Bri

THE tragedy in which five Great Northern Railway of Ireland permanent way men lost their lives at Omagh Station on November 24, 1950, has been commemorated by Omagh Historic Forum and Fermanagh and Omagh District Council in the form of a professional

IT will doubtless be a Christmas like no other in recent memory, but families living near the Spa Valley Railway in Tunbridge Wells will be able to enjoy one of the perennial yuletide favourites, a ride behind a steam locomotive. And to increase th

THE Scottish Railway Preservation Society’s Steaming Ahead project to build a new engineering facility has been boosted by a £234,000 grant fromThe National Lottery Heritage Fund. So far, £975,800 has been raised for the project at the Bo’ness & Kinn

THE county of NorthYorkshire is home to a variety of attractions which are guaranteed to delight railway enthusiasts. Uppermost are the National Railway Museum and the NorthYorkshire Moors Railway, and bubbling just beneath the surface are the herita

This month, the public has been able once again to gaze in awe at the spectacle of illuminated Christmas trains lighting up the night skies above several of our heritage railways. Engineered by the Dartmouth Steam Railway two years ago, this time rou

AS we closed for press, West Coast Railways was still scheduled to run a steam-hauled‘Northern Belle’luxury dining train from London Victoria to Salisbury and back, behind one of Ian Riley’s LMS‘Black Five’locomotives on December 17. Meanwhile, West

THE Scottish Railway Preservation Society (SRPS) is gearing up for a resumption of main line tour operations in 2021 – subject to the imposition of further restrictions in the name of Covid-19. With the focus on the future, a programme of refurbish

LASER scanners and drones have been used to map the Settle & Carlisle route’s 144-year-old Grade II listed Ribblehead Viaduct in minute detail, as part of the £2.1 million Great North Rail Project restoration project to secure its future. The viaduct

In his latest column, Don Benn reports on the performance of B1 No. 61306 Mayflower on the Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh route in 2019, A4 No. 60016 Silver King and BR Standard 5 No. 73152 from Scotland in 1964, Galatea running as No. 45562 Alberta o

Hereford, Appleby & return. Diesel-hauled throughout. Loco: TBC. SR Birmingham International, Appleby & return. Diesel-hauled throughout. Loco: TBC. SR Manchester Victoria, Carlisle & return. Steam-hauled throughout. Loco: TBC. RTC Wolverhampto

Helen Smith, the general manager of the Severn Valley Railway was appointed in November 2019, just in time for the busy Christmas season. Thinking then that she was being thrown in at the deep end, alas, the water only got deeper (in some cases liter

NORTH American manufacturer Rapido Trains has announced it intends to produce ready-to-run models of British prototypes which have not previously been available. Among the gaps it is filling in OO-gauge is WR Hawksworth ‘15XX’ 0-6-0PT. Although desig