On Saturday 1st August the Severn Valley Railway, one of the UK’s premier heritage railways, reopened, after over 4 months closed due to the coronavirus shutdown. Thanks for reading. Check out my other posts on travel, heritage railways and more.Please click like and subscribe for more random railways content. Follow me on Twitter and Youtube. If you would… Read More Severn Valley Railway Reopens
Another extract from “The Railway Engineer”, this is from the 1925 edition. The 4 page article gives an in depth report on the reconstruction of the City and South London Railway – known today as The Northern Line of London Underground. Thanks for reading. Check out my other posts on travel, heritage railways and more.Please… Read More City & South London Railway
I have several copies of “The Railway Engineer” from the 1920’s. It was a monthly railway technical paper, I have the annual bound volume versions. Here’s a few samples. Yes that big U shaped thing is a pneumatic boiler riveter, suspended off the overhead crane. The other item of interest is the article on the… Read More The Railway Engineer, 1920
A couple of years ago I wrote a post about the disused station at Newnham Bridge in Worcestershire. It had been empty for many years. Over the last couple of months refurbishment work has started. The work is currently focusing on the main station house, the buildings are all being preserved and renovated. According to… Read More Newnham Bridge revisited
Although there’s often a theme in the media about “health & safety gone mad” the concern for people’s welfare, especially in the workplace, is not a recent thing – although, without a doubt, conditions are far safer now than for previous generations. This recently acquired LMS accident prevention booklet from 1924 shows rail workers how… Read More Early Railway Health & Safety
If you’ve ever watched “The Fugitive” with Harrison Ford you will, no doubt, remember the train crash. No models involved, all full size, some of it is still on location. It was filmed on a private/heritage railroad, the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad. Though their website barely mentions ithttps://www.gsmr.com You can see it on Google Maps:… Read More The Fugitive train crash
In its heyday Builth Road was a thriving community in its own right. The junction of the Central Wales Railway and the Mid Wales Railway was built on two different levels, with a spur linking the two. The Central WalesRailway’s High Level Station opened for traffic in 1866. The Mid Wales line ran from Brecon… Read More Builth Road Station
Browsing at a car boot sale last year (a type of flea market for non-English readers) I found several old cine films, including this one. It’s a Walton Films documentary of a trip during the last days of the LMS before nationalisation, in 1948. It follows the journey of LMS Jubilee class No. 5614 Leeward… Read More Day in the life of an engine driver, on Super 8
Last year I picked up an old box of slides at auction. I noticed a few railway images amongst the general views of life in what turned out to be Edinburgh in the early 1960’s. In fact, as far as I can deduce from the collection and the slide captions it was the work of… Read More Auction Finds
I found an envelope of old GWR papers at a recent car boot. Accident reports & letters from/to the Great Western Railway regarding staff injuries. Mostly dated about 1927. I’ll scan and post more soon, however this one stuck out. “With regard to injury… in handling lard” . Thankfully it’s not a problem we encounter… Read More Beware of Lard
