Category: Britain

Four years after they last ran, and a year after summer services returned to the resorts of Newquay and Skegness, now it is the turn of Tenby in Pembrokeshire to see the restoration of summer specials, as part of a major expansion of GWR services in West Wales.

Nor only has the timetable introduced on 21 May 2023 seen a substantial increase in the number of direct weekday services between Carmarthen and Paddington rise from one round trip a day to six, but summer Saturdays see a direct service from the capital to Tenby and Pembroke Dock at 08.48, with return services from Pembroke Dock at 10.00 and 15.00.

Continue reading “Return of the Pembroke Coast Express”

Returning for a two-day Easter week working trip to the Isle of Wight, it was good to see that the promised half-hourly rail service has at last begun, almost 18 months after the route from Ryde to Shanklin re-opened.

While Ryde Pier will not reopen until at least June, it is good to see significant progress on the new transport interchange since my last visit in early December 2022, which suggests it could be completed in time for the peak summer season.

Continue reading “Full Island Line service resumes at last (well almost)”

Paying a visit to Littlehampton and Bognor Regis last month to photograph the semaphores and Class 313 workings, I had noticed a couple of foot crossings west of Barnham station that had distinct potential as photo-spots.

So making a return visit to this busy junction, my challenge was to see if I could capture a final glimpse of Class 313s working all six of the weekday West Coastway diagrams they are scheduled to operate until their final withdrawal from service on 20 May 2023.

Continue reading “West Coastway Class 313 swansong”

Mid-week closure for engineering work of the route between Castle Cary and Taunton meant another excuse to savour the rare sight of diverted GWR “flying cucumber” Class 80x IETs as they passed Yeovil Pen Mill on 23 March 2023 while working services between London Paddington and Plymouth.

Returning to photograph a scene I had last witnessed in September 2020, it was once again apparent how the single line between Castle Cary and Pen Mill, as well as the long sections of single line between Yeovil and Exeter, make for some pretty slack timetabling of the diverted services and replacement of some stopping services by mythical bus connections.

Continue reading “GWR IETs diverted via Yeovil”

Having outlived three other locations along the Mid-Sussex Line by almost a decade time is fast running out for the semaphore signals at Littlehampton and Bognor Regis, along with the veteran Class 313 units that continue to pass them every half hour, but will be gone by the time of the May 2023 timetable change.

Earlier this month (on 3 March 2023) Arun District Council approved a plan by Network Rail to remove the two semaphore signal brackets at the platform ends of Bognor Regis’ Grade II Listed station and it seems certain that the two brackets at Littlehampton are also on borrowed time.

Continue reading “Doomed trains and semaphores on the West Sussex coast”

There are now just four signal boxes remaining along the important 108¼-mile long route linking Aberdeen and Inverness in north-east Scotland, following a number of resignalling projects over recent years.

Most recent casualties in the march of progress have been the boxes at Forres and Elgin West in 2017, followed by those at Inverurie and Dyce in 2019, leaving the current quartet of mechanically-signalled locations at Keith, Huntly, Kennethmont and Insch.

Continue reading “Snow and semaphores in North-East Scotland”

Passing a pair of new Transport for Wales (TfW) Class 197 units while travelling from Newport to Craven Arms on Monday, 20 February, inspired me to pay a visit to Ferryside and Pembrey & Burry Port on 23 February 2023, in the hope of photographing the new CAF sets passing the doomed semaphore signals.

Under the current weekday timetable, Class 197 units, which are being assembled at Newport, are scheduled to operate around a dozen daily test/mileage accumulation diagrams from Swansea to Carmarthen, all beginning with the prefix 3E, although how many of these are actually run seems to vary from day to day.

Continue reading “Winter sunshine and semaphores in South Wales”

After I had last paid a photographic visit to Craven Arms in May 2022, I lamented the blockading of a footpath across the line just north of signal box and level crossing that would have been a great place to see trains passing the surviving semaphores.

A sign at the entrance to the footpath from the A49 had said that it would be closed until early 2023 “pending the installation of safety features”, which I assumed would be the sort of lockable gates and warning lights that I have seen at other foot crossings.

Continue reading “A great new vantage point at Craven Arms”

After a welcome sighting of Network Rail’s New Measurement Train (NMT) on a recent trip to Dawlish, I was inspired to take day trips to a couple of my favourite photo-spots in the hope of seeing the “flying banana” once again as it visited Yeovil and Moreton-in-Marsh, on its everlasting tour of our national rail network.

But things did not quite go according to plan, and on a dismal and foggy day (25 January 2023) the NMT failed to make its scheduled mid-afternoon appearance at Yeovil Pen Mill, when its circuit from Derby to Bristol via Weymouth was seemingly curtailed, while the following day produced a rather different NR test train at Moreton-in-Marsh.

Continue reading “Semaphores and Class 37s at Moreton-in-Marsh”