I have just received my copy of the 200th Great Western Echo, the magazine of the Great Western Society. They are 50 years old, having produced the first two newsletters in Sept 1962 and Jan 1963. According to Steam Railway, it is the “longest running journal continuously produced by a voluntary railway organisation” except for […]
6023 King Edward II has certainly had his problems. Perhaps being named after one of our more, er, disappointing historical monarchs has caused the engine some bad karma and the story of his restoration to working order has definitely been a case of overcoming some desperately difficult and, at times apparently insurmountable obstacles. Even when […]
This is a fabulous bit of footage on Youtube taken last week on the Southern. All electric services had been cancelled and nothing seems to be happening as the camera peers into the whitening gloom until: you can hear it, the purposeful, defiant blast of the chimney, the headlights coming out of the white-out and […]
It has been a bit low key in the media but news that the 12.5 miles of singled track between Kemble and Swindon on the Golden Valley line is to be redoubled at a cost of £45 million is very welcome indeed and it restores one of the madder bits of cost cutting that was […]
Time for the GWR wishlist for 2013 – things we’d like to see most. Please send in your own ideas but here are a few to get us going: 1. 5029 Nunney Castle back on the GWR mainline 2. A nice, stable, unmoving trackbed on the GWSR 3. Some proper mainline work for 4936 […]