Month: May 2024

After a highly enjoyable day in the impressive Melton Station Signal Box (October 2023) it is time to pay another visit to the fascinating Leicester-Peterborough line and take a look at two more of the route’s six boxes that retain some semaphore signalling interest.

On a day of dire weather (28 May 2024) my visits this time were to the boxes at Ashwell and Ketton, giving a chance to see not only the boxes themselves, but also some heritage Class 37 action and a view of the network’s most historic semaphore signal.

Continue reading “Semaphores and Class 37s in Leicestershire”

PARLIAMENTARY TRAINS are a fascinating feature of the Northern rail network, so having previously sampled the operator’s sparse workings to Chathill, Brigg, Heysham Port, Helsby-Ellesmere Port and Stalybridge-Stockport it was time to finally complete the set with a trip on the 16½-mile route between Goole and Knottingley.

While service frequencies have generally been increased on lines across the country over the past few years, that is certainly not the case for this eastern extension of the Pontefract Line from Leeds and Wakefield beyond Knottingley, which sees far more freight workings to and from Drax Power Station than it does passenger services.

Continue reading “Parliamentary train to Hensall”

Saturday, 18 May 2024 marks exactly five years since the memorable final day of main line HST operations on the GWR network (18 May 2019), so the perfect excuse to recall the locations and services I photographed and travelled on that fateful occasion.

On a brilliantly stage-managed day where the four final departures from London Paddington were lined up alongside each other in the early evening, I had decided to shun the crowds and pay my farewells on two routes I knew well, the Cotswold Line from Oxford to Worcester and the Golden Valley route from Swindon to Cheltenham Spa. 

Continue reading “5 years on: remembering the final day of GWR main line HSTs “

Six months on from my last visit (November 2023) and it is time to take a day return trip to delightful Pembrey & Burry Port, in order to see if there has been any progress on the heavily-delayed re-signalling project called Port Talbot West 2 (PTW2).

This project will see the end of semaphore signalling at both Pembrey and Ferryside and was due for completion earlier this year, but that had seemed highly improbable on the evidence of my previous visit, when there was absolutely no sign of any work taking place to prepare for the re-signalling.

Continue reading “Back to Burry Port”