Category: Britain

Cheltenham’s famous Gold Cup on Friday, 14 March 2025 saw a total of four extra GWR services run from London Paddington via Stroud and the Golden Valley route, while for really well-heeled punters there was the luxury Northern Belle Pullman service that ran via the Cotswold Line to Evesham.

That made the perfect excuse to take a trip ahead of the special as far as Moreton-in-Marsh, for the chance to photograph the Class 57-powered train passing some of the semaphore signals, before heading on to Honeybourne to capture the empty stock as it arrived in the sidings there.

Continue reading “Gold Cup special on the Cotswold Line”

More than five years after my previous visit (January 2020) it is time to pay a return visit to Wainfleet (13 March 2025) on the ever-charming 55-mile long Poacher Line from Grantham to Skegness, in the hope of seeing its two semaphore distant signals pulled off for a Class 43-powered NR test train.

This small Lincolnshire town, five miles south of Skegness, is home to the revered Bateman’s Brewery and to an unstaffed station boasting a fine Grade II-Listed Great Northern Railway signal box that dates from 1899 and controls a handful of semaphores, including distant signals W1 in the down direction and W22 on the up line.

Continue reading “Wonderful Wainfleet”

A forecast of fine weather persuaded me to take make a springtime return to Liskeard on Thursday, 6 March 2025, when my challenge was to see if it is possible to get any decent shots from west of the station showing trains approaching up outer home signal LD2 and crossing Moorswater Viaduct.

Having previously trekked out eastwards from the station to photograph trains passing down outer home signal LD35, this would hopefully be an opportunity to photograph the one of Liskeard’s six semaphores that had so far eluded my camera, and also what has been described as Cornwall’s most spectacular viaduct.

Continue reading “Return to Liskeard”

Finding loco haulage on our national network is something of a challenge, and  is currently confined to the sleeper services from London to Cornwall and  Scotland, LNER Class 91 workings between London, Leeds and York, TfW services between Cardiff and Manchester and a handful of Chiltern Railways workings between London Marylebone, Birmingham and Stourbridge Junction.

In a year that will mark 15 years since loco-haulage returned to the Chiltern Railways route in December 2010, I was keen to once again sample the delights of Mk3 coaches and Class 68 haulage, so decided to see how cheaply it was possible to travel in style on the Chiltern route to our second city via High Wycombe and Banbury.

Continue reading “£8.50 loco-hauled return from London to Birmingham”

Almost four years have passed since my last visit to Helsby Junction in April 2021, so it seemed high time to pay a return visit (Monday, 17 February 2025) to this charming, and last remaining, outpost of mechanical signalling along the route from Warrington Bank Quay to Chester.

Helsby boasts a Grade II-Listed London & North Western Railway (LNWR) Type 4 signal box that opened in 1900 as replacement for an earlier 1870s box. It stands on platforms 2/3 and shares its listing with the station building and waiting shelter dating from 1849. Following its renovation, the box won a National Railway Heritage Award in 2004.

Continue reading “Hello again, Helsby”

A forecast of dry weather and the monthly visit of an HST-powered NR test train is enough to persuade me to pay another return visit to Pembrey & Burry Port on 12 February 2025, at the start of what is claimed by Network Rail (NR) will be the final year for its semaphore signals.

At the time of a previous visit to West Wales in October 2024, I had been told by the infrastructure owner that its aim was to have the over-running Port Talbot West 2 (PTW2) re-signalling project completed “by the end of 2025” although there is still very little evidence of work taking place.

Continue reading “HST test train at Pembrey”

Sunday, 2 February 2025 marked exactly five years since the 23.35 Lowestoft-Norwich service (2J99) brought the curtain down on a remarkable outpost of mechanical signalling, by being the last service to be signalled by the six signal and gate boxes between Lowestoft Central and Brundall Junction.

Having paid numerous visits to the charming Wherry Lines during the final weeks of mechanical signalling, this notable fifth anniversary seems like an appropriate excuse to look back at the fine collection of signal boxes and semaphores that had lasted many years longer than expected.

Continue reading “The final days of Wherry Line semaphores”

Almost two years after the local authority granted Network Rail listed building consent to remove the two semaphore signal brackets at Bognor Regis there is still no sign of any replacement activity, and they continue to safely signal trains out of the South Coast resort, along with another pair at nearby Littlehampton.

My repeated attempts to get an official update on any re-signalling plans from Network Rail proved unsuccessful, but what was intriguing was to hear from one of the Bognor platform staff that the signal heads there had been replaced in the last few months, while those at Littlehampton also looked rather new.

Continue reading “South Coast semaphores soldier on”

Four years after its promised transformation was begun with the pensioning off of the 1938-vintage Class 483 units on 3 January 2021, it is fair to say that things have not gone too well with rail services on the charming Isle of Wight.

An investment of £26 million in the 8½-mile route from Ryde Pier Head to Shanklin and the arrival of a new five strong fleet of two-car Class 484 units – created from former London Underground District Line D78 stock – were meant to herald a bright new future for Island Line.

Continue reading “Winter sunshine on the Isle of Wight”

This is my sixth annual look back at a year on our railway, as seen through the lens of my trusty Canon camera, a year that began with the sad loss of mechanical signalling at Par, Lostwithiel and Truro in Cornwall and ended in a chance to travel on the first weekday services to run on the Northumberland Line, one of two lines to re-open on our network during the course of the year.

It was a year too, when I paid visits to two locations where there is nothing but freight action and semaphore signalling, as well as paying return visits to a number of my favourite photographic locations, including Kingussie and Auchterarder in Scotland, the Poacher Line to Skegness, the Cumbrian Coast Line, Burry Port and Holyhead. Continue reading “Images of 2024”