Heritage Railway Issue 246

DURING my two decades in railway journalism, conflicts between the requirements of rails and the ambitions of cyclepath promoters have often been vexed issues, the latest manifestation being the controversy over the use of the footbridge that links Totnes to the South Devon Railway’s Totnes (Riverside) terminus and the town’s magnificent rare breeds farm next door that, as an animal lover, is the finest of its type I have ever seen. So far the railway has refused to allow the footbridge to become part of a long-distance cyclepath stretching across southern England from the Kent coast to south Cornwall, and it has come under a barrage of criticism from local politicians at all levels for taking this stance. There are two factors at play here. Firstly, the footbridge would need…

VINTAGE Trains, the Tyseley Locomotive Works-based railtour promoter, has been granted Train Operating Company status. On September 5, a spokesman for the Office of Rail & Road confirmed that the operating licence had been granted, enabling the company to run a passenger service of express steam trains with Pullman dining on the national network. The status has come, after months of discussions, meetings and fundraising via a share issue, as a tremendous boost to Vintage Trains’ chairman Michael Whitehouse, whose aspirations have been not only to see railtours departing from Warwick Road once again, but to be able to plan and run Vintage Trains’ main line operations in its own right. A Vintage Trains statement said: “Gaining TOC status is the start of an exciting journey to develop Tyseley into…

TYSELEY’S 50th anniversary open weekend of September 29-30 will see Castle 4-6-0 No. 5043 Earl of Mount Edgcumbe steaming in public for the last time before its 10-year overhaul. It is able to steam on the occasion after some repairs were undertaken in the workshops. As reported last month, the high-profile event will see a unique line-up of four Castles – the others being No. 7029 Clun Castle, No. 5080 Defiant and the to-be-restored No. 7027 Thornbury Castle. It will also see the return to steam of Keighley & Worth Valley Railway-based LMS Jubilee 4-6-0 No. 45596 Bahamas, following its overhaul in the Tyseley workshops, and an appearance by two items of traction from the former Sutton Miniature Railway, 4-4-2 No.2 Sutton Flyer and the line’s GWR railcar. In action…

THE planned static display retirement of John Cameron’s LNER A4 Pacific No. 60009 Union of South Africa looks set to be postponed for at least 12 months following reports that the planning application for his proposed railway museum and visitor centre on his sheep farm near Kilconquhar has been rejected by Fife Council. John had hoped that the building would have been completed in time for the A4’s retirement from the main line next July, thus allowing the A4 to go on display alongside his other locomotive, K4 2-6-0 No. 61994 The Great Marquess and support coach BSK No. 35486. New home at the Moors? It is understood that one of the issues that Fife Council has is that there is already the Museum of Scottish Railways located at Bo’ness,…

PRINCESS Coronation 4-6-2 No. 6233 Duchess of Sutherland is back in steam – and also in its original LMS crimson lake livery to mark its 80th birthday. Following the completion of a major overhaul, a special ‘roll out day’ was held on Sunday, September 9 at the iconic 1938-built locomotive’s base – the West Shed at the Midland Railway-Butterley. Over the last nine months, the former Butlin’s Heads of Ayr holiday camp and Bressingham Museum locomotive has received a full boiler overhaul, with the major work being the retubing of 129 small tubes and replacing the 40 large flue tubes, at a total cost of around £150,000. The vast majority of the work has been carried out in-house by the Princess Royal Class Locomotive Trust’s four full-time engineers with the…

WORK on the restoration of the boiler from former ‘Barry 10’ No. 7927 Willington Hall, which is to be used in the re-creation of a Collett Grange, is almost complete at Tyseley Locomotive Works, around three months behind schedule. The delay has been due to the requirement for a new front taper section, which had not originally been envisaged, along with the delivery of the tooling to allow it to be correctly aligned with and fixed to the remainder of the original boiler. It is planned to display the finished boiler in the frames of new-build 4-6-0 No. 6880 Betton Grange at Tyseley’s September 29/30 open weekend. Although Betton Grange has previously been displayed with the cosmetically restored…