Month: June 2024

Mazey Day action and inaction at Liskeard

The Statesman special heads onto Liskeard Viadcut powered by D1924 (47810) and 47712

One year on from a day witnessing two Mazey Day excursions to Penzance as they passed the doomed semaphores at Par, my plan this time for a return to the Royal Duchy on Saturday, 29 June 2024 was to see this year’s brace of special trains as they passed the semaphore signals at Liskeard.

Star turn of the two special workings this year was a pair of Class 50s (50007/049) on the Pathfinder Railtours service (1Z69) from Dorridge and stations in the West Midlands, followed shortly afterwards by Statesman Rail working 1Z69 from Wolverhampton, powered by a pair of LSL-owned Class 47s (47712/810).

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Freight and semaphores on the North-East coast

66542 approaches signal CH27 on 24 June 2024 with 6F33 from South Bank Tees Dock to Boulby

Loss of semaphore signalling on the soon-to-be-reopened Northumberland Line and at Billingham/Norton-on-Tees has left previous few outposts of mechanical signalling in North-East England, with the last few being along the Tyne Valley line, at Winning on the line to North Blyth, Shildon and at Nunthorpe on the Esk Valley Line.

One other location that I had long wished to visit and photograph is Crag Hall near Saltburn, where a rather unattractive North Eastern Railway box dating from 1878 controls a freight-only route from Saltburn West Junction to Boulby Potash Mine on the long-closed coastal railway route to Whitby.

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Hungary’s longest narrow gauge railway system

C50-405 arrives at Csömödér with loaded timber wagons on 11 June 2024

After a fascinating visit in November 2023 to the last narrow gauge line to be run by Hungary’s state railway operator, I am making return visit to the country to travel and photograph the country’s longest surviving 760mm gauge forestry railway network.

This is a 109km (68-mile) long system in the south-west of Hungary near the border with Slovenia that begins in a small town called Lenti before heading east to its base at Csömödér and then south to a terminus at a remote spot called Kistolmács.

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D-Day 80 remembered at Goodrington Sands

Sea cadets on Goodrington Sands as 2253 storms up the 1/71 gradient with the 11.50 ex-Paignton

There was a fitting tribute to the D-Day 80th Anniversary on the Dartmouth Steam Railway this week, where US Army Transportation Corps (USATC) Baldwin 2-8-0 2253 “Omaha” was in service (4 June 2024) adorned with a “D-Day 80 Overlord” headboard.

Loco 2253 has a colourful history, having arrived in the UK on May 1943 and working with the LNER out of Neville Hill depot in Leeds. It was returned to the USATC after D-Day and spent many years working in Poland, before being bought for preservation in 1992. It was restored in 2019, when it was painted maroon and named “Omaha” before arriving at Paignton in February 2020.

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