Features

FROM THE ARCHIVES It is 25 years since loco-hauled services between Liverpool and Newcastle went over to Class 158 operation. David Russell looks back at the last few years of diesel haulage on the trans-Pennine route. THE ‘Sprinterisation’ of rail services in the latter half of the 1980s and early 1990s saw the end of…

Continue reading »

Always willing to go the extra mile, Neville Hill grits his teeth to endure a long distance ‘Pacer’ trip with Northern. THE days of mill owners commuting from the Lancashire coast to their empires in the woollen districts of the West Riding have long since slid away into the mists of time, the remnants of…

Continue reading »

Today’s few remaining Class 08/09 shunters are confined to yards and depots, but the once thousand-strong fleet was also entrusted to some local trip workings until the demise of wagonload freight in the 1990s. David Ratcliffe presents a selection of workings in the 1980s and 90s. Read more in the May issue of RE –…

Continue reading »

The final regular workings of London Underground ‘D’ Stock should take place as this issue comes out. Christopher Westcott looks back over their career with LU. THE story of London Underground’s ‘D’ Stock begins in the early 1970s. As the then new ‘C’ Stock trains arrived onto the Circle and Hammersmith & City Line, displaced…

Continue reading »

It wasn’t just football fans that looked forward to weekends – summer Saturdays used to bring rail enthusiasts out in force for the mouth-watering prospect of freight locos hauling passenger trains to holiday destinations across the country. In the first of a new series, Rail Express looks back to those golden years. THE growth of…

Continue reading »

FROM OUR ARCHIVES Following electrification of the southern half of the West Coast Main Line in the 1960s, subsequent decades saw completion through to Glasgow, sectorisation, privatisation, franchise controversy and a full route upgrade. AFTER completion of the wiring covering the Euston-Birmingham-Liverpool-Manchester routes, including via Stoke-on-Trent in 1967, early approval was sought to continue through…

Continue reading »