Spare a thought for those of us who will this weekend (25 May 2025) lose a major rail travel benefit as a result of South Western Railway (SWR) becoming the first rail operator to be nationalised by the Labour Government.
Over the past five years a major benefit for me of working part-time for a FirstGroup company has been an annual allocation of cheap day rover tickets that are valid on any of the First rail operations and, importantly for me, SWR.
Fancying a change from the steam action at Wolsztyn, my fascination for narrow gauge railways takes me on a day trip to a place called Pleszew, one hour south of Poznań Główny station by regional (KW) train and location for the only mixed narrow/standard gauge railway in Poland.
Here there is a 3km (1.9 mile) branch line that runs from Pleszew Wąsk. (narrow gauge), adjacent to the main line station, to Pleszew Miasto (Town) station, a line that has closed, then re-opened in recent years, was operated by 750mm locos and railcars, but now has its regular passenger services formed by ex-Czech Railways (CD) 4-wheel railcars.
Continue reading “A mixed-gauge curiosity in Central Poland”
Scheduled daily steam services have resumed at Wolsztyn in Western Poland after a pause in operations during late April to prepare for the annual and highly popular “parade” event on 3 May 2025.
But the current weekday round trip from Wolsztyn to Zbaszynek on the Berlin-Warsaw main line and a rather longer Saturday trip to Poznan and back will come to an end on 16 August 2025 when Wolsztyn depot’s one working main line loco will be stopped for repairs.
Removal of a number of the semaphore signals controlled by Whittlesea Signal Box in early 2025 and imminent removal of its remaining down trio will leave just one significant outpost of mechanical signalling in East Anglia, apart from a few shunting arms at March and a solitary semaphore controlled by King’s Lynn Junction Signal Box.
That one remaining outpost of main-line mechanical signalling is Manea, a rather remote and sparsely-served village mid-way between March and Ely, where the elimination of main line mechanical signalling in East Anglia is expected to be completed when its quartet of semaphores is finally replaced.
Returning south from Newcastle after my visit to Prudhoe and a day riding the Tyne and Wear Metro, I decided to travel back via Carlisle and the WCML (on 24 April 2024), in order to spend a couple of hours at a remote location on the wonderful Tyne Valley Line that boasts the route’s only semaphore distant signal.
A location that I had only recently read about is Milton Gate Box, just east of the station and historic market town of Brampton, where a NER Type N2 box stands at a level crossing on the A689 and controls a trio of semaphores from its 10-lever Stevens frame, including a motor-worked up distant signal (1) close to Brampton station.
RailwayWorld.net 
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