Editor’s Intro
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If at first you don’t succeed…
THE efforts of the Swanage Railway are a perfect illustration of the proverb in which we are urged to try, try, try again. Almost as soon as British Rail closed the branch from Wareham to Swanage on January 1, 1972, efforts were made to reopen it in full as an ongoing heritage concern. But, as…
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Welcome
WELL Brussels, at least. Eurostar has introduced its Class 374 ‘Velaro’ sets to its London-Brussels route, 18 months after they started on the Paris run. These Siemens-built sets can carry 20% more passengers than the original Class 373s for roughly the same length of train, which they do by having a distributed underfloor traction system…
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Never say you’ve seen it all!
RAIL enthusiasts are blessed to have a hobby where nothing ever stands still. Yes, there is a healthy streak of nostalgia involved, looking back to the ‘golden years’ (of which everyone has a different opinion). But that nostalgia is only driven by the ever-changing scene, as new locos and units enter traffic and old ones…
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Seeing red
THE news that First-MTR has won the next South West Trains franchise raised more than a few eyebrows in the industry. Not only has First Group thus ousted its great rival Stagecoach from a franchise it has held since 1996, but the consortium’s future plans include bringing back 30-year-old Class 442s to Wessex while replacing…
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Back to the future
I AM grateful to the Heavy Tractor Group for its invitation behind the scenes to witness the transformation of ‘Heavyweight’ Type 3 No. 37714 from DRS blue livery into a retro look of Trainload triple grey, as pictured on our cover this month. The work has been done at Loram in Derby, and we covered…
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Welcome to Issue 250!
IN a month of anniversaries that includes 40 years since the last ‘Westerns’ were withdrawn and 35 years since the quirky Holyhead Breakwater shunters were scrapped, we celebrate our own major milepost: 250 issues. Rail Express was launched in 1996, right in the middle of the privatisation of British Rail, and we have tracked the…
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Gloom but not doom
IT has not been a great start to the year so far. Fares have gone up, passenger growth figures have stalled, the prospect of further electrification is on hold, and strikes have again affected services. The much anticipated Class 31 charter to the Mid-Norfolk Railway was cancelled, the DTG’s ‘Western’ No. D1015 can no longer…
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First of the many
THIS will be a big year for modern traction, as 2017 is the diamond jubilee of the first main line diesel fleets starting work with British Railways. Yes there had been shunters and prototypes developed by the ‘Big Four’, but it was only after the Second World War that things could really get going –…
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Not fade away
THE last surviving Class 306 EMU has had a fascinating career. Originally designed by the LNER in the late 1930s for planned electrification of the Liverpool Street to Shenfield line, the fleet of 92 units was delayed by the Second World War and so did not enter service until 1949 in the nationalised British Railways…
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Will the swallow be a swansong?
THIS year has been a big one for the HST, one which has seen the iconic design notch up 40 years in front line service. It is a remarkable achievement unmatched in the modern traction era. There are older diesels around, but none still doing the job they were first intended to do, day in…
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