Category: Britain

They were only created as a temporary fix to cover for a shortage of rolling stock and have out-lived their expected withdrawal date by at least two years, but now time is finally up for the popular GWR Castle 2+4 HSTs, which will make their last journeys between Exeter, Plymouth and Penzance on Saturday, 13 December 2025.

Keen to pay my respects, I took a rather lengthy trip to Cornwall on their final weekday of working (Friday, 12 December) with the aim of capturing a trio of these iconic units as they passed the equally iconic semaphore signals at St. Erth, before taking a last ever ride aboard 43004/186 (GW08) from there back to Plymouth.

Continue reading “Farewell to the GWR Castle HSTs”

Visiting signal boxes is a rare treat that gives you a real insight into how Victorian technology is still safely controlling many parts of our national rail network, so it was a rather special day (25 November 2025) when I was kindly invited by Network Rail to visit the Isle of Anglesey’s five historic signal and gate boxes.

Over the course of the final 21 miles of the North Wales Main Line, from Llanfairpwll to Holyhead, this quintet of boxes includes three Grade II-Listed structures at Llanfairpwll, Ty Croes and Valley, along with a LNWR box dating from 1882 at remote Gaerwen and a large LMS box at Holyhead, which is youngest of all, and only dates from 1937.

Continue reading “A look inside Anglesey’s historic signal boxes”

Almost five years after my previous visit (April 2021) I am tempted to make a return visit to Uttoxeter, mid-point of North Staffordshire route between Derby and Stoke-on-Trent, to capture trains passing its fine set of semaphores and in the hope of capturing some non-passenger action.

Uttoxeter is probably best known as home of the Midlands Grand National, but earned a place in railway history for being home to England’s very last mechanical signal box, a BR (London Midland Region) Type 15 design, which opened in January 1981 and is equipped with a re-conditioned 40-lever frame, now controlling a total of ten semaphore signals.

Continue reading “A full set of semaphores at Uttoxeter”

Four years after my only previous visit, and an autumn break in the Scottish capital gives me the perfect excuse (on 11 November 2025) to take a bargain-priced (£14.30) 90-minute trip aboard one of the wonderful ScotRail Inter7City HSTs to Arbroath, then a short bus ride north to the village of Inverkeilor, to capture the railway scene at this photogenic location.

Inverkeilor has been without a railway station since September 1930, but is one of ten locations along the East Coast Main Line in Scotland to retain mechanical signalling, with its 1881 North British Railway signal box controlling four semaphore arms, all of which can be seen from an over-bridge in Station Road.

Continue reading “Return to Inverkeilor”

At 00.34 in the early hours of Saturday, 25 October 2025, SWR Class 444 units 444009/040, which formed train 2P77 from London Waterloo (departing at 23.22 on Friday night) earned a place in railway history when it became the last passenger train ever to be signalled by Haslemere Signal Box. After 130 years of faithful service the signal box bells fell silent and its working life was over.

Under Network Rail’s (NR) heavily-delayed re-signalling plans, the box at Haslemere has closed, along with those at Farncombe and Petersfield, with control of the Portsmouth Direct Line being taken over by the NR Railway Operating Centre (ROC) at Basingstoke and the route scheduled to re-open, after a nine-closure, on Monday, 3 November 2025.

Continue reading “End of an era on the Portsmouth Direct Line”

Another piece of railway history was written at 11.16 on Wednesday, 22 October 2025, when Network Rail “flying banana” test train 1Q16 became the last ever high speed train (HST) to pass the semaphores controlled by Pembrey Signal Box.

Just eight days before the box closes as part of the long-delayed Port Talbot West 2 (PTW2) re-signalling project, Colas Rail-operated power cars 43013/14 headed east towards Derby after their monthly tour of West Wales branches, and visits to Milford Haven, Fishguard Harbour and Pembroke Dock.

Continue reading “Last HST to pass the Pembrey semaphores”

Less than two months before withdrawal of the GWR Castle HST sets in mid-December 2025 and with crew training now beginning on the replacement Class 175 units meant the perfect excuse to pay a return visit to Liskeard on 20 October 2025 to capture the changing face of Cornwall’s main line.

Despite pretty dire weather for much of the day, a few hours on the rather photogenic station meant a chance to photograph 175009 on two of the day’s crew training runs along with the only two Class 255 HST “Castle” sets in action that day, after the third diagram had been curtailed and replaced with a two-car Class 150 unit.

Continue reading “The new order and the old at Liskeard”

Only weeks remain before another outpost of lower quadrant semaphore signalling is consigned to railway history, when much-delayed re-signalling of the main line between Swansea and Carmarthen spells closure for four signal boxes and with it the loss of mechanical signalling at Pembrey & Burry Port and at Ferryside.

Paying what could well be my last visit to the area (on 10/11 September 2025) before the new signalling is commissioned on 3 November, my aim was to capture for one last time trains passing the handful of semaphores at both locations, hopefully including one of the route’s only scheduled freight workings, the oil tanks to and from Robeston Sidings, near Milford Haven.

Continue reading “Last days of the South Wales semaphores”

Concluding my trio of summer visits to heritage railways affiliated to the Watercress Line – meaning free travel for working volunteers like me – I head north for an overnight stay in Bury and a couple of days on the charming East Lancashire Railway (ELR).

The town’s former main station, Bury Bolton Street, is headquarters of the 12½-mile line, which from there runs three miles east to Heywood and a link to the national Rail network at Castleton and 9 miles north alongside the Irwell River to Rawtenstall.

Continue reading “Rendezvous at Ramsbottom”

Planning on taking a day train trip from Cheltenham Spa to Bridgnorth to reacquaint myself with the fully re-opened Severn Valley Railway, I was persuaded to put off my SVR journey by a day when I spoke to a couple of enthusiasts in the Cafe Loco at Worcester Shrub Hill to ask why Rail Operations Group Class 37 37800 Cassiopeia was parked up in the centre siding.

I learned that it was there to provide Thunderbird breakdown cover for Porterbrook’s converted Class 319 Hydroflex unit 799201, which was scheduled to be making a test run from Long Marston to Shrub Hill and back later in the day (12 August 2025), but also heard of another interesting special working that day departing from the rail storage facility at Long Marston.

Continue reading “Sun and semaphores at Droitwich Spa”