Heritage Railway Issue 284

BACK in 1983, a time when many of our top-flight heritage lines had been established, I drove past Toddington station and glimpsed the first of the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway revivalists at work. Would they, I wondered with hope, ever come near to equalling the magnificence of the SevernValley Railway, as they laboured against the odds to restore sections of the Great Western Railway’s Stratford-upon-Avon to Cheltenham main line that had been mostly torn up by BR four years before? Four decades on and the G/WR is a proud testament to the achievements of an army of regular volunteers. Not only have they relaid 15 miles of the route and tackled a series of serious landslips in the process, but they also have created a somewhere-to-somewhere line that has long since…

STEAM services returned to the Llangollen Railway on Saturday, August 21. The 10.30am departure from Llangollen to Carrog, headed by Nick Gilbert’s GWR Collett heavy freight 2-8-0 No. 3802, was the first steam-hauled train since October – and marked a major milestone in the recovery of the line under the Llangollen Railway Trust. No. 3802’s certification was completed to the satisfaction of the Office of Rail and Road by members of the motive power department. The occasion doubled up as a day of reassessment of the competence of the footplate crews after a 10-month lay-off in operations. Despite the wet weather, good numbers boarded the train for the run behind the 2884 class. As the line began the long road back to recovery – after the railway’s plc went into…

AN OPERATION by contractors Barnett Engineering of Rhosllanerchrugog has seen the longitudinal beams craned in on the canopy columns either side of the waiting room steelwork on the island platform at the Llangollen Railway’s new Corwen terminus. Measuring a total length of 112ft, the main beams are supplemented with cross bracing between the four pairs of ex-Blackfriars station columns and form the base for the planned canopy structure, the subject of a grant application. The beams obscure the so-called unsightly connections between the end pairs of columns which caused a furore during the line’s previous regime a year ago. Meanwhile, work on bricking up the steelwork for the waiting room continues, alongside preparations being made for the insertion of the first window frame sills. The sills have been delivered for…

AS BR Standard 5MT No. 73082 Camelot prepares to steam again at the Bluebell Railway, its owning group has launched an appeal to help keep it running. The Riddles 4-6-0 is nearing the end of an intermediate overhaul at the Sheffield Park works, and is expected to return to service in September with a fresh 10-year boiler certificate. It is owned by the 73082 Camelot Locomotive Society, which rescued it from Barry scrapyard in 1979 and restored it at the Bluebell, returning it to steam in 1995. Its latest overhaul, prompted by problems with the firebox foundation ring, commenced at the start of this year. The society contributed £35,000 towards materials for the overhaul, as well as funding the £2500 cost of restoring its SR-design CCT (Covered Carriage Truck) No.…

A £250,000 appeal to save the Bredgar & Wormshill Light Railway has been launched. The 2ft gauge line near Sittingbourne in Kent was founded in 1975 by brothers Bill and David Best. Friends helped them in their spare time and a track was laid around the farmhouse where Bill lived with his family. Eventually they decided to open the line to the public once a month, the admission money being used to fund restoration projects. Bill passed away in early 2020 and his son, also Bill Best, acquired the site and railway from his four brothers. To prevent the venue being sold and physically dismantled, several valuable items from the collection had to be sold, although the bulk of it remains intact. The railway has provided support to groups like…

WEST Somerset Railway running foreman Stuart Nelhams has been appointed as the new general manager of the Lynton & Barnstaple Railway. Taking up his post on August 11, Stuart, 47, replaces Martyn Budd, who retired on his 65th birthday, having served since 2007. On the WSR, Stuart worked first as a volunteer and then as a paid employee since his schooldays. He has worked as a driver, instructor and fireman, shed fitter and steam experience courses manager, and as part of the events planning team. An L&B spokesman said: “Stuart is a railwayman of many talents. We are lucky to have him.”…