Category: Articles

Only three weeks after its re-opening following a four-month closure to repair extensive flood damage, a week in North Wales working on the Ffestiniog Railway gave me an opportunity to sample summer Sunday services on the picturesque Conwy Valley line from Llandudno to Blaenau Ffestiniog.

But things did not go according to plan and my depressing experience, along with a number of similar experiences on the equally spectacular Cambrian Coast Line, has convinced me that new franchisee Transport for Wales (TfW) is not fit for purpose and that the Welsh Government should be urgently reviewing its tenure of the franchise Continue reading “Sunday woes in the Conwy Valley”

 

When it comes to provincial railway revivals in England, there cannot be anything to match the scale of transformation that has taken place on the 15½-mile long Chase Line in Staffordshire over the 30 years, since an initial ten-mile section from Walsall to Hednesford was re-opened in 1989.

Chase Line services quickly proved popular and were later extended to Rugeley Town (June 1997) and Rugeley Trent Valley (May 1998), initially continuing on the West Coast Main Line to Stafford, but cut back to Trent Valley in December 2008 to free up capacity on the WCML. Continue reading “Chase Line re-born”

Just three weeks after my previous failed attempt to sample the summer Saturday SWR service to Weymouth and Corfe Castle (6 July), it is profoundly disappointing to have suffered a similar experience again on Saturday (27 July)

Despite an assurance given to me the previous day from the SWR media team (who had kindly given me a ticket after the previous debacle) that the service would be running as planned, it was once again terminated at Salisbury due to “crew shortage”. Continue reading “SWR cancels its seaside special again”

A day-out by train from Cheltenham Spa to Bridgnorth, on the wonderful Severn Valley Railway, meant another chance to spend an interesting time waiting for my connecting train at Worcester Shrub Hill, where the usual diet of West Midlands Class 170 units coming and going was interspersed with the chance to see some rare freight action. Continue reading “Steel & semaphores at Shrub Hill”

Rover and ranger tickets are a great way to see parts of the country by public transport at a bargain price so, having once travelled the entire 268-mile Cornish rail network in a single day for the price of a Ride Cornwall ticket (£10.00 at the time), I felt it was high time to try something similar in the charming Cotswolds.

My ticket this time was a Cotswold Discoverer one day pass (£10.50 adult or £6.90 with a railcard), which offers rail travel from Ashchurch to Gloucester, Yate and Swindon, as well as Moreton-in-March to Oxford, along with a whole host of bus routes across the region, extending from Stratford-upon-Avon in the north to Chippenham in the south. Continue reading “A cut-price tour of the Cotswolds”

 

Robin Higgs OBE (left) stands alongside another legendary railway enthusiast, the late Sir William McAlpine, at Alton station on Saturday, 20 November 2010. McAlpine had been invited to unveil a plaque marking completion of the station re-signalling project.

Five years ago I took my first step towards becoming a regular volunteer on the Mid-Hants Railway when I attended an introductory event at Alresford. Along with a group of other would-be volunteers, I was then taken by train to Ropley, where a sprightly gentleman in his 80s introduced himself to me and enthused about the Watercress Line. Continue reading “Robin Higgs OBE: a personal tribute”

As the era of Class 37 haulage on the Wherry Lines in Norfolk draws to a close, it is very heartening to see these 1960s machines make a welcome reappearance on a South Wales route where they have not worked since December 2005.

While the current single weekday return from Rhymney to Cardiff Central is not as easy to photograph as the regular Norwich-Great Yarmouth/Lowestoft services, it is possible for a visitor to the area to get two different and decent shots of the evening service. Continue reading “A tractor in the Rhymney Valley “

 

A year after its experimental summer Saturday services to Corfe Castle were heavily blighted by RMT industrial action, this year’s resumption seems to have got off to a pretty dismal start.

Despite their huge popularity, the entire timetable was cancelled without warning on Saturday (6 July) apparently due to train crew shortage, so ruining a planned day out to Weymouth or Corfe Castle for many hundreds of intending passengers. Continue reading “No SWR return to Corfe Castle”

 

It has been described by local Railfuture campaigners as “one of the strangest and most unwelcoming stations in East Anglia” but is nevertheless a place well worth visiting for its signalling interest and for the frequency and variety of passing rail traffic.

Whittlesea station, less than ten minutes east of Peterborough on the busy cross-country route to Ely, serves a growing settlement, curiously known as Whittlesey, with a well-sited but poorly-equipped station and a sparse stopping service. Continue reading “Wonderful Whittlesea”