Sarah Wilkinson

UK RAILTOURS boss John Farrow has had to relinquish using the ‘Northern Belle’ set of carriages for his luxury-end tours. This has come about because of the sale of the carriages by Belmond to a new company called Northern Belle Holdings Ltd. This has resulted in a change of motive power, and will see non-100mph…

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IT is now 15 years since a Class 58 last ran under its own power in Britain. The date was March 19, 2003 when Nos. 58041+58043 ran light engine from Eastleigh to Dollands Moor on their way for use in Spain. The last Class 58 had been switched off by EWS in September 2002 after…

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WHILE most of British Rail’s first generation DMU fleet was phased out of operation by the mid-1990s, the Class 121 ‘Bubble Cars’ proved too useful to be completely discarded and many passed to the departmental fleet for use as Sandite layers during the autumn leaf-fall season. It was one of these that Balfour Beatty and…

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  THE long-expected exodus of locomotives from Washwood Heath finally occurred during January, ahead of the former Alstom site being handed over to HS2 for redevelopment, the land eventually being destined to house the high speed route’s Birmingham depot. As a result, Boden Rail has now transferred its maintenance and overhaul activities to Nottingham Eastcroft,…

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DMU No. 156458 was derailed by a landslide near the eastern end of Loch Eilt on January 22 as it formed the 06.03 Mallaig to Fort William and Glasgow. Five passengers and two crew were aboard at the time, but none was said to be injured. The remote location hampered the recovery and repair in…

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GB RAILFREIGHT has announced that two of the long-stored Class 92s formerly owned by Eurostar and SNCF are to be reinstated to service during 2018. The selected locos are Nos. 92006 and 92020, both of which are already at Brush Traction and have not worked since 2006 and 2001 respectively. No. 92020 is already undergoing…

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EXPERIMENTS with shunters powered by internal combustion engines date back to the Victorian era, but it was not until the early part of the 1930s that serious consideration was given to replacing steam for yard and trip work. The LMS led the way by ordering seven prototypes in 1933/34 from four manufacturers and with six…

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THE full 24-train-per-hour Thameslink timetable has been postponed until December 2019, despite the necessary infrastructure improvements and fleet of new Class 700 EMUs being ready for December 2018. An interim service will be implemented from May 2018 featuring 18 trains per hour, which will provide 70% of the capacity benefits. As a preliminary to that,…

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THE start of the new eight-year West Midlands franchise, which took over from London Midland on December 10, saw the launch of new West Midlands Railway (WMR) and London Northwestern Railway (LNR) brands by West Midlands Trains – a joint venture between Abellio, JR East and Mitsui. The LNR brand was unveiled on Class 350…

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