Heritage Railway

➜ See pages 20 and 21 for further images of No. 590 and a report of the winner of a Heritage Railwaysponsored research competition to mark the centenary of the full opening of the original WHR and a preview of the gala being held on June 23-25 to cel

THE A1 Steam LocomotiveTrust – the ground-breaking charity which built and operates new Peppercorn Pacific No.60163 Tornado and is now nearing completion of a new Gresley P2 2-8-2 No. 2007 Prince of Wales – vacated the carriage works on Hopetown Lane

THE DukeofKentvisitedtheKeighley & WorthValley Railway to join in with the 100th birthday celebrations for A3 Pacific No. 60103 Flying Scotsman. The duke, 87, who is both a second cousin and first cousin once removed of King Charles III, became patr

ONE of the most significant developments ever in Britain’s world-leading heritage railway and preservation sector was announced in May 9, when the proposal to link the RotherValley Railway with its neighbour, the Kent & East Sussex Railway, was given

WHILE Britain’s National Railway Museum is hailed as a worldwide market leader in the preservation of rail artefacts and rolling stock, an archaeological dig to rediscover relics from centuries before the steam era has begun. In a new partnership bet

TO mark the centenary of the Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway’s Davey Paxman 2-8-2 River Esk, three days of celebrations took place over the May Day bank holiday weekend, with visitor numbers soaring by about 20% on the same time last year. The main gues

TWO oftheLNERCoachAssociation’s carriage fleet have emerged into the daylight at two different lines, with the unique lounge buffet car No. E1706E entering service just in time to partake in trains being run to celebrate the coronation of King Charle

THE Bodmin & Wenford Railway’s May 20/21 gala saw the first-ever passenger train to be hauled by diminutive Port of Par Bagnall 0-4-0ST No. 2572 of 1954 Judy over the heritage line. Requiring some careful boiler management from fireman Chris Hatton,

ON May14, 1951, theworld’sfirst passenger train on a railway run entirely by volunteers departed fromTywyn Wharf station on theTalyllyn Railway. What followed was unlikely to have been foreseen by many – if any – as the operational railway heritage s

THE Darjeeling Himalayan Railway Society has donated £40,000 to support the DarjeelingTank LocomotiveTrust’s bid to buy the late Chiltern Railways founder Adrian Shooter CB E’s 1889-built ‘B’Class 0-4-0SWTT No. 19B. The locomotive is one of more than

NENE Valley Railway-based Bulleid Battle of Britain Pacific No. 34081 92 Squadron has been temporarily renamed as No. 34111 Royal Auxiliary Air Force to mark the coming centenary of voluntary service in the RAF. The transformation was the brainchild

Proudly carrying its coronation and 120th ‘birthday’ headboard, Peckett Jurassic arrives at Walls Lane station on the Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway. CHRIS BATES/LCLR HERITAGE railways big and small celebrated the crowning of King Charles III with

LIFELONG steam railway enthusiast Stephen Murfitt has been named winner of the prestigiousWelsh Highland Railway research competition, held to commemorate the centenary of the line opening its entire length from Dinas to Porthmadog. The contest, whic

THE Welsh Highland Railway (WHR), Britain’s longest heritage railway, celebrated its incorporation as the Welsh Highland Railway (Light Railway) Company (WHLR) in 2022. The railway has had a chequered history characterised by stewardship under the au

WEST Coast Railways has filed for a judicial review of the Office of Rail and Road’s refusal to grant a further period of exemption from Regulation 5 of the Railway Safety Regulations 1999, which relates to the fitting of secondary carriage door lock

ON May2, the Lakeside & Haverthwaite Railway celebrated its 50th anniversary with a special train for invited guests. As LMS 2-6-4T Fairburn No. 42073 (which hauled the railway’s 1973 opening train along with classmate No. 42085) was unavailable and

A BRStandard9F2-10-0hasventured north of the English-Scottish border to take up residence on a heritage line in the Highlands, becoming the only 9F to have ever been based in the territory in both the BR and heritage era. Unrestored No. 92219 – built

THE largest and most intensive event to be held at the Kent and East Sussex Railway for several years presented a rare opportunity to access areas of the line normally off limits to visitors, including travel to the most southern extremity of the cur

THE two sole-surviving Bulleid 4DD EMU driving trailers have been reunited for the first time in nearly 40 years – when driving motor brake third No. S13004 was transported to Sellindge, in Kent, to join No. S13003. The pair of driving trailers were

RECENT visitorstothecoastaltownof Aberystwyth will have no doubt noticed a very clean and‘new’-looking station at the terminus of the 1ft 11 ¾in gaugeVale of Rheidol railway. The line is now in the final stages of a major £2.2 million improvement pro

HISTORIC Englandhasawardeda£252,000 grant towards the restoration of a goods shed which is believed to be the oldest surviving one in the UK. Built in 1833, the Grade II*-listed shed in Darlington formed part of the Stockton & Darlington Railway and

THE SevernValley Railway’s May 18-21 Spring Diesel Festival in May – which celebrated 50 years of main line diesels in preservation – smashed records not only for its visitor attendance, but also for the high number of locomotives taking part. More t

EVERSHOLT Rail is to sponsor the National Railway Museum’s new Wonderlab: The Bramall Gallery for the next five years. Opening this summer, Wonderlab aims to ignite curiosity in engineering and rail through hands-on learning, including exhibits, art

£3.54 Pay just per edition When you take out a subscription to Heritage Railway Resplendent in Southern Railway green livery, new-build Lynton & Barnstaple Railway Manning Wardle-style 2-6-2T No. 190 Lyd storms across the Cob from Porthmadog with

THE West Somerset Railway will hold a 1960s weekend on July 8/9. In 1964, local schools were disrupted by the arrival of the Beatles and Steptoe and Son actor Wilfred Bramble on the Minehead branch, who were filming the iconic comedy film A Hard Day’

TWO UK-built preserved locomotives joined rivals from Australia and the USA in an event north of Sydney on April 30 in what was either a race or parallel running, depending on your point of view. It was billed as the Great Train Race and representati

A NEW experimental Great Central Railway timetable aims to give visitors more time to get to know‘their’train, as it prepares for its special 50th anniversary weekend of celebrations. The aim is to encourage visitors to visit the footplate and meet t

PASSENGER numbersattheSwanage Railway’s successful May 12-14 diesel gala returned to pre-pandemic levels, an increase of 5% on the figure for last year’s event. Five per cent more passengers were carried during the Swanage Railway’s 16th three-day di

SEVENTY years after the last Londonderry & Lough Swilly Railway trains departed from Tooban Junction, where the line from Derry split for Buncrana and Letterkenny, a signal has again appeared at the historic site. Buncrana sculptor John McCarron has

FIGHTING for its survival, Staffordshire’s Rugeley Miniature Railway received a surprise and welcome boost from a fellow society. Steven Brown is a member from the 1968 founding group of the South Cheshire Model Engineering Society, which has its tra

DURING the weekend of May 20/21, the Dean Forest Railway held its first of two steam galas for 2023. The event saw resident GWR 2-6-2T No. 5541 and 0-6-0PT No. 9681 joined by pannier No. 1369, thus presenting an opportunity to compare two different s

THE Ffestiniog &Welsh Highland Railway pulled out all the stops to carry out a complete overhaul of its new-build articulated double Fairlie 0-4-4-0T David Lloyd George so it can play a key role in the 2023 roster. In 1992, the Ffestiniog Railway com

A MURDER mystery, cheese train, and a youngsters’Nerf experience are on the spring and summer menu at the SpaValley Railway. The mystery is titled Faulty Towers The Dining Experience, which gives a clue that laughter, furrowed brows, and dinner will

SOUTH Australia’s National Railway Museum chief executive Bob Sampson has been celebrating several success stories as the Port Adelaide-based venue bounced back after the Covid-19 crisis. Not only has the pre-pandemic visitor annual total of 45,000 b

With the Shropshire hills as a backdrop, lambs and sheep remain undisturbed as LNER A4 Pacific No. 60007 Sir Nigel Gresley, with a Saphos Trains southbound special, passes 13th-century Stokesay Castle – described as one of the finest surviving fortif

The theme of this year’s extremely successful and well-organised Cotswold Festival of Steam was Cheltenham and Gloucester Steam Days, recreating the halcyon days of the 1950s and 1960s over the 14-mile heritage line between Cheltenham and Broadway. C

A PROJECT to refurbish a 163-year-old wooden viaduct on the Cambrian was completed by Network Rail engineers in just 16 days, ensuring that the structure will continue to carry passengers for many more years to come. First constructed in 1860, the 23

THE‘Coronation Deltic’tour which was planned to coincide with the crowning of King Charles III has been rescheduled to Saturday, August 19. The tour had originally been due to take place the week following the coronation but was postponed due to rail

WHILE Steam Dreams’highly-successful‘Garden of England’and‘Sunset Steam Express’tours continue to run this summer out of London, September is also set to be a busy month for the company, with five tours advertised. On September 10, there is an 8am de

GRADE II*-listedWinfield station, alongside the Midland Main Line in Alfreton, which fell into disrepair after being closed in 1967, has been reroofed withWelsh Slate Ltd’s Penrhyn Heather Blue slates. The 1840-built structure, which was built by the

A 130-year-old cast iron footbridge at Beverley station,Yorkshire, is undergoing repairs and restoration to strengthen and preserve the structure in order to reopen it to passengers. Closed in September 2022 on safety grounds, weakened pieces of the

ON May 27, B1 4-6-0 No. 61306 Mayflower made a welcome return at the head of a Steam Dreams tour for the first time since the company was taken over by Locomotive Services Limited. It made two journeys that day, the first from Paddington to Oxford in

10 ‘The Cheshireman’ London Euston, Chester and return. Loco: 60103 Flying Scotsman. RTC 10 ‘The Settle & Carlisle Pullman’ Gerrards Cross, Carlisle and return. Loco: Midland Pullman HST. MP 10 Pathfinder Golden Anniversary Burton upon Trent, Weymo

I HAD been keeping an eye on the RailwayTouring Company’s Atlantic Coast Express as this is an annual event normally hauled by Merchant Navy Pacific No. 35028 Clan Line and which always runs without a diesel locomotive on the back. As the 4-6-2 is st

FULLY-BOUND volumes of The Railway Magazine from the year of its launch in 1897 to 2015 outsold all comers with a realisation of £1000 in a two-week timed auction held by GW Railwayana that ran on May 1-14. The set comprised 162 volumes, with some du

WEST Country history, sun, seaand sand will be at the heart of an internet and telephone auction being held by RailwayanaSales’ChrisFranceonJune26-July 2.The headline lot is GWR nameplate Dartington Hall from No. 4918, built at Swindon in March 1929

THE owner of a preserved steam locomotive has reunited his engine with one of its original worksplates after a chance discovery at Amberley Museum. The plate, from a standard gauge 0-4-0ST built for the Ministry of Supply by Peckett & Sons of Bristol

AWelsh railway line built to convey mainly coal trains to Swansea docks, and an LNER suburban service locomotive destination board from the interwar years, will feature in the live online Transport Auctions of London sale on June 24. The Welsh repres

In the first part of this feature, published in the last issue of Heritage Railway, I mentioned steam finishing on our industrial sites… or so we believed at the time! Who would have ever thought we would see steam locomotives returning to places lik

DAPOL has announced that it will be producing the Collett 2884 and Churchward 2800 classes of the GWR heavy freight 2-8-0 locomotives in OO scale, with the project currently in the design phase. Dapol’s new model is being produced thanks to the aid o

RAPIDO’S SECR 20-ton six-wheel brake vans arrived with retailers at the end of May, bolstering the manufacturer’s range of pre-Grouping stock available with an ideal vehicle to attach to the end of the rakes. With a design similar to Midland region v

www.orwellmodelrailways.co.uk ■