Heritage Railway Issue 250

WE join with everyone in the heritage railway sector in congratulating two truly outstanding recipients of New Year’s Honours for 2019. When local lad Mervyn Allcock set out to preserve the behemoth that is Barrow Hill roundhouse and turn it into a major heritage venue, there were many who remained unconvinced. How on earth could an old brick shed full of static locomotives be a visitor draw with the same appeal as an operational heritage line? However, over many years, Mervyn and his Barrow Hill Engine Shed Society confounded such critics time and time again. What the powers that be had declared redundant and a prime candidate for the bulldozer became not only a multi-use facility for rail activities across the board, but a unique and phenomenal historical and educational…

MERVYN Allcock, who 30 years ago founded the campaign to save Britain’s last rail-connected roundhouse – the former Staveley Midland shed at Barrow Hill – and turned it into a major heritage venue, is to be appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire. The appointment in the 2019 New Year’s Honours List was made for “services to railway preservation and development”. The 1870-built roundhouse is just a short bike ride from Mervyn’s childhood home at Inkersall, near Chesterfield, and was a favourite place for trainspotting when he was a child. Mervyn learned of the plans to close the site in 1989, which led him to set up the campaign to prevent its demolition. Built in 1870, it was threatened with demolition in 1991 when the site was…

VALE of Rheidol Railway 2-6-2T No. 7 is to make a comeback by pulling the line’s first train of the new season after a 20-year restoration. The 1923-built locomotive (pictured), which has previously carried the name Owain Glyndwr, will return to revenue-earning service on February 16 following restoration by the line’s craftsmen and apprentices Trains will run on February 16-28 and March 1-3, 9-10, 16-17, 23-24, and 30-31. Also, phase one of the £1.2 million redevelopment work at Aberystwyth station (HR248) will be open. This project includes the new accessible platform alongside the car park, new toilet facilities and an interim booking office.…

SAM Mullins, the director of London Transport Museum in Covent Garden, has received an OBE in the New Year’s Honours List. Having been appointed as director in 1994, Sam, who comes from Salisbury and now lives in Dalston, is credited with transforming it into the world’s premier urban transport museum. He played a pivotal role in the award-winning Metropolitan Railway 150 celebrations in 2013, which marked the anniversary of the world’s oldest underground line. He also opened the museum’s depot at Acton, the UK’s first publicly accessible museum storehouse that houses Transport for London’s outstanding and nationally designated heritage collection, from trains, trams and buses, to the design archive of signs, maps and posters. TfL said that under Sam’s leadership, LTM has engaged and delighted millions of visitors, as well…

FOLLOWING its return to traffic following repairs, crowd-pulling A1 Peppercorn Pacific No. 60163 Tornado is to spend two months on the Wensleydale Railway. Providing that all goes well with its imminent main line test runs (see separate story below), Tornado will arrive on the line via its main line connection at Northallerton on Saturday, February 9. The primary purpose of the visit is to use the heritage line as a layover at Leeming Bar in between jobs and to conduct maintenance. However, it may also be used to run some trips over the heritage line for the general public before its departure on Saturday, March 2. Tornado will, however, return on Saturday, May 11, and will stay until Friday, June 7. It is scheduled to run trips there on May…

TORNADO is now on the brink of returning to traffic after its failure on the‘Ebor Express’last April and subsequent‘hospitalisation’on the Nene Valley Railway for extensive repairs, which included outside contractor’s manufacture of replacement parts. As part of the A1’s running-in and as a thank you for the Nene Valley Railway’s hospitality, the 4-6-2 worked driver experience trips on January 5 and 11 and scheduled passenger trains on January 6 and 12. All that remained was a main line proving run or two to establish the locomotive’s credentials in time for it to be available to work the first of a series of ‘North Briton’ charters from Doncaster to Carlisle via Shap, trains returning over the Settle and Carlisle line. The first departure is booked for Saturday, February 9. A trust…