Month: December 2019

As another year draws to a close, this seems like the ideal opportunity to take a look back at 2019 on our railways, as captured on my travels around Great Britain over the past year, and a chance to reflect on the rapidly changing face of our network in some of my favourite images of the past 12 months.

2019 was an historic year that has seen the end of long-distance HSTs on both GWR and LNER and their replacement with the new Hitachi 80x series units. It was a year, too, in which new short HST sets began appearing on both GWR and ScotRail services, while the popular Class 37s finally disappeared from East Anglia, but made a re-appearance in the Rhymney Valley. Continue reading “Images of 2019”

 

Travel on one of the newly-accelerated GWR Cotswold Line services from London Paddington to Hereford and in the 44¼ miles from Moreton-in-Marsh to Ledbury you will pass no less than seven signal boxes controlling semaphore signals.

Having previously featured Moreton-in-Marsh, and the wonderful array of semaphore signals at Worcester’s two stations, it is time to head west over the River Severn for a visit to two lesser known outposts of mechanical signalling. Continue reading “Wayside semaphores in The Malverns”

Over the past three years of visiting the Wherry Lines to photograph its loco-hauled services and its semaphore signalling, one consistent feature has been the sight of Class 153 one-coach units, usually operating singly, but occasionally in pairs.

As the quintet of “Scuds” has now departed East Anglia to join some of their classmates in South Wales, this seems like the right moment to share a short selection of my favourite images of Class 153 action on the Wherry Lines. Continue reading “Scuds scrambled”

Less than two months from now and the Wherry Lines transformation will reach its final stage, with a three-week shutdown to complete and commission long-delayed re-signalling of the lines from Norwich to Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft.

Already this year we have seen the end of loco-hauled Class 37 services and, more recently, the rather less-lamented exit of the single car Class 153 “Scuds”, as the new Class 755 units make their delayed appearance.

Having written many articles about the line’s signalling attractions over the past three years, I was delighted to be invited by Network Rail to pay visits on Tuesday, 3 December to the five splendid signal boxes that will close early next year.

Continue reading “Wherry new trains, Wherry old signals”