February 2024 – RailwayWorld.net

A new direction for Wolsztyn steam

A significant change has been made to daily steam services from Wolsztyn depot in western Poland since my October 2023 visit, with the two weekday workings to and from Leszno replaced in December 2023 by a single afternoon round trip each day to the junction station of Zbaszynek on the Berlin-Warsaw main line.

Gone, for now at least, are services like the 06.03 steam-hauled school train to Leszno, whose two coaches would be rammed by the time it completed its 46km (29-mile) run, and in its place is a 28km (17½-mile) service departing Wolsztyn at 14.14 on Mondays to Fridays and returning two hours later at 16.16.

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One last look at Lostwithiel

After recent visits to Par and Truro is seemed only right to make a farewell trip on Friday, 9 February 2024 to the third Cornish signal box that will succumb to resignalling in early March 2024, the charming and listed Lostwithiel Crossing, which dates from 1893.

Lostwithiel is a very pleasant place and given its proximity to the town, and location at the eastern end of the down platform, there are hopes that the signal box could gain a new lease of life as a cafe, like those at Bodmin Parkway and Totnes.

A £2 tour of the Cumbrian Coast Line

156472 arrives at Barrow on 4 May 2021 with 2C50 from Carlisle (11.07)

Travel bargains, prompted by a seasonal slump in passenger numbers, are a feature of our national railway network at the start of each year, so when operator Northern advertised a “£1 flash sale” in early January it seemed too good an opportunity to miss, even for someone living in the South of England.

After a close call between the Settle & Carlisle and Cumbrian Coast routes I picked the latter, and planned a rather lengthy day out (6 February 2024) from Haslemere to Carlisle on the West Coast Main Line, before a £1.00 trip from there to photogenic Barrow-in-Furness and, after an hour’s break, another £1.00 ride from there to Lancaster, before returning to Euston and then home.

Time is almost up at Truro

43042/004 (set GW07) pass the doomed signal box with 2P16 from Penzance (13.15) to Plymouth

Another precious piece of our railway heritage will be lost at the end of this month (February 2024) when Truro Signal Box closes, as part of the Cornwall re-signalling project, after a working life stretching back 125 years to 1899.

Unlike the two other boxes to close, at Par and Lostwithiel, there is no Grade II listing to protect the attractive former Truro East box, so it remains to be seen whether it will disappear, or perhaps live on as a ghostly shell, like the former St. Austell Signal Box, which closed more than four decades ago (March 1980).