News

  • Presflos and Polybulks head for scrap

    Presflos and Polybulks head for scrap

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    ORIGINALLY refurbished in 2003, and painted in an attractive all-over orange colour scheme with the classic RMC diamond logo, the 15 long-stored PCA Presflo wagons (Nos. RC 10025-8/33/4/8/40-3/5/7-9) now owned by Cemex are being disposed of. Funded in part by a Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) grant of over £500,000, the former Rugby Cement ‘Presflos’ (built…

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  • First Class 345, 385 and 707 units delivered

    First Class 345, 385 and 707 units delivered

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    South West Trains, ScotRail and Crossrail prepare for the introduction of new stock. The first of Siemens’ new ‘Desiro City’ EMUs for South West Trains, No. 707001, reached the UK in early December and was collected from Dollands Moor by Nos. 37884+37800 on December 8 and moved as the 6X88/23.45 Dollands Moor-Clapham Yard. The morning…

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  • DRS returns Class 20s to store

    DRS returns Class 20s to store

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    With the autumn Railhead Treatment Train season over, the five Type 1s have been stood down from traffic once more. With the late onset of autumn, 2016’s Railhead Treatment Train programme was extended into mid-December in some areas of the country. However, as the wagon sets began to be returned to York once again, this…

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  • Final ‘S’ Stock delivered but work goes on

    Final ‘S’ Stock delivered but work goes on

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    The 192nd and final ‘S’ Stock train was delivered to London Underground on November 10, more than 6½ years after the first pre-production train arrived. The fleet, which has taken nine years to deliver from the signing of the contract, is made up of 59 eight-car units that operate on the Metropolitan Line and 133…

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  • Wheel flats cripple Piccadilly Line services

    Wheel flats cripple Piccadilly Line services

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    Especially bad weather combined with other factors to wipe out more than half the fleet of 1973 Stock. A ‘perfect storm’ of poor rail adhesion, leading to wheel slips under braking, resulted in the majority of the Piccadilly Line’s 1973 Stock developing flats during late November and early December. At one point, more than half…

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  • Siemens’ Hornsey depot opens

    Siemens’ Hornsey depot opens

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    New facility will maintain the Class 700 EMU fleet being introduced for Great Northern and Thameslink services. Siemens officially opened its traincare centre at Hornsey, North London, on December 13 which will house and maintain the Class 700 fleet it has built for use on Thameslink services. It is one of two new depots built…

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  • Butterley ‘Chopper’ sold to CVR group

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    The Churnet Valley Railway is the new base for partially restored Class 20. Another Class 20 entered preservation in December when No. D8057, which had been offered for sale by Michael Owen back in the autumn, was sold to a group at the Churnet Valley Railway in Staffordshire. The English Electric Type 1 was moved to…

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  • Gauging issue scuppers ‘31’ tour to Mid-Norfolk

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    Charter from London is cancelled at just eight days’ notice after Network Rail says the Class 442 EMU stock is not cleared to use the planned route. Rail Operations Group’s keenly awaited charter to the Mid-Norfolk Railway’s diesel gala, which was to be operated by a pair of Class 31s hauling an off-lease Class 442 EMU,…

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  • REVIEWS: Night Trains of British Rail

    REVIEWS: Night Trains of British Rail

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    By Alan Whitehouse THIS book does ‘exactly what it says on the tin’ as a picture and caption collection of night shots of British Rail workings taken mostly in the 1980s. Back then, the variety was much greater than today – both in terms of locos used as well as traffic carried. Passenger, parcels, mail,…

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  • LETTERS: ‘Nightstar’ in Birmingham

    LETTERS: ‘Nightstar’ in Birmingham

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    CAN anyone help with more information about this photo from my collection? It shows EPS Type 3 No. 37612 heading a generator car, another ‘37/6’, and a rake of ‘Nightstar’ coaches in an enclosed compound at Washwood Heath in late 1996. Was this at the Alstom factory? Was it a newly-built rake? Or was it…

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