January 2026 – RailwayWorld.net

Another taste of TfW fine dining

67022 arrives at Newport with 1W59 from Cardiff Central (12.53) to Manchester Piccadilly

Almost two years on from my only previous experience (feature: April 2024) and the offer of a bargain-priced First Class single from Newport to Crewe in the January Rail Sale (£32.80 with railcard) meant a chance to sample once again the fine dining available each day on a handful of Transport for Wales (TfW) Cardiff-Manchester services and one Holyhead-Cardiff working.

As I wrote two years ago, dining on the line is a pleasure that takes me back to my early working career in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when I had some memorable meals aboard the all-First Class Manchester Pullman and was also the only enthusiast aboard the last ever restaurant service in a 4-REP unit from London Waterloo to Bournemouth (2 October 1981)

Rare diversionary action on the Settle-Carlisle Line

805001/007 approach Garsdale on 14 January with 1Z85 from Carlisle (09.23) to Preston

Diverting West Coast Main Line trains over the scenic Settle-Carlisle Line was once standard practice when the WCML was blocked between Preston and Carlisle, but the famously scenic route had not been used for this purpose for more than ten years, until it regained this role during the first two weeks of 2026.

What made it possible now was the arrival into service of Avanti West Coast’s new bi-mode Class 805 Evero units, primarily designed to operate services between London Euston and Holyhead, but ideally suited to operating the Preston-Carlisle shuttles that were run from 1st to 14th January 2026.

Winslow still waits for its first train

More than a year after Phase Two of the long-awaited East-West Rail (EWR) Project to link Oxford and Cambridge was completed, residents in the small Buckinghamshire market town of Winslow still wait for the day when the promised half-hourly trains between Oxford and Milton Keynes begin calling at their shiny new station.

Winslow originally lost its passenger service on New Year’s Day 1968, with delayed closure to passengers of the Varsity Line, and its new and re-sited station is the only genuinely new stop along the section of EWR route from Bicester Village to Bletchley, apart from new high level platforms at Bletchley, alongside the existing WCML station.