News

NIR’s largest station to be renamed after 42 years. BELFAST Central station is to be renamed Lanyon Place, which will coincide with a project to improve the main entrance and internal facilities of the through station. Northern Ireland Railways stated that the change has been made to “provide more clarity on where the station is…

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Crewe-based Locomotive Services has added a Class 45 to its growing loco fleet. FURTHER expansion of the Locomotive Services fleet took place in early February with the acquisition of ‘Peak’ No. 45118 The Royal Artilleryman – which has been located at Loram (formerly RVEL) at Derby since 2009 – by its Locomotive Diesels business. The…

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Construction has begun on a new four-road Train Modification Unit for upgrading 1992 Stock. WORK has begun to build a new £23.3 million workshop at London Underground’s Acton Works, in West London. The 550sq m facility will initially host all 85 of the Central Line’s 1992 Tube stock fleet during their upgrade and refurbishment work,…

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The East Lancashire Railway’s Bury Unit Team picked up the Heritage Railway Association/Rail Express Modern Traction Award at a ceremony held in Birmingham on February 10. The award recognised the superb 20-year restoration of ‘Cravens’ Class 105 DMU Nos. 51485 and 56121, which has been completely rebuilt from a shell and is now the only…

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GWR-liveried IET No. 800303 reached Inverness on February 28 to become the first of its type to enter the depot there, which has had a £5 million upgrade to handle the new trains. The bi-mode set – one of the batch originally specified to be a Class 801 electric-only version but changed owing to Great…

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THE railway movement is mourning the death of Sir William McAlpine who died on March 4 after a short illness, at the age of 82. Director of the McAlpine construction firm, Sir William (known to most as Bill) was a great supporter of the railways, particularly the preservation movement. He became the saviour of A3…

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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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