UK Railways

My train to Wigan arriving at Littleborough with 158 905 leading.

Chaos at Norbury Crossing on the Buxton (ex LNWR) branch.150 124 is flagged past the home signal at danger after electrical failures caused signalling and gates to become inoperable. The narrow and awkward location for road traffic meant complete gridlock and it took some time for the vehicles to be extricated to use alternative routes. This is the second time that this has happened in the past week and clearly the engineers have no idea where the intermittent problem lies.

S9 'Henbury' (Peckett No. 1940/1937) & S3 'Portbury' (Avonside No. 1764)/1917, pass the cranes and warehouses at Bristol Docks. This tourist operation seems to have become a very atmospheric part of the tourist scene at this interesting location.

A pair of class 25 locomotives wait at Silverdale Station whilst the crew collect the single line token from the machine in the office. The train is carrying coal from the nearby Holditch Colliery.

Cheddleton on the Churnet Valley Railway. A nice little Braithwaite tank for supplying locomotives.

158 728 has just passed overthe pedestrian crossing at Ladybank Golf Club and will soon be stopping at Ladybank Station with a service from Perth to Edinburgh.

230 008 arrives at Neston on a run to Wrexham Central. A ride on this battery powered train, using heavily modified ex London Underground stock, was smooth with rapid acceleration from the several stops. There are many seats in fours with tables and all seats coincide with windows (praise be!). These units are not yet proving very reliable and another unit had failed on this line earlier in the day. The other services on this route were being worked by a Transport for Wales class 150 unit.

43924 shortly after leaving Haworth with a mixed train on the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway. It was raining steadily.

The Puffing Billy is said to be the oldest surviving steam locomotive in the world. It was constructed in 1813-1814 by colliery viewer William Hedley, enginewright Jonathan Forster and blacksmith Timothy Hackworth for Christopher Blackett, the owner of Wylam Colliery near Newcastle upon Tyne. It proved too heavy for the track and was rebuilt in 1815 with ten wheels, but was returned to its original condition in 1830 when the line was relaid with stronger rails. Puffing Billy remained in service until 1862, when Edward Blackett, the owner of Wylam Colliery, lent it to the Patent Office Museum in South Kensington, London (later the Science Museum). He later sold it to the museum for £200. It is still on display there. Its sister locomotive, Wylam Dilly, is preserved in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. In 2006 a replica was built for use at Beamish Museum and it is this locomotive that is seen here operating on the Pockerley Waggonway on its first day back in service after a major overhaul and retubing over the winter. The crew commented that the new boiler lagging was very effective and they were having trouble keeping the safety valves from lifting.

1450 with an autotrailer waits for the road outside Bewdley South Box on the Severn Valley Railway.

Scotrail HST set led by 43235 with 43163 at the rear takes the line towards Dundee as it leaves the station at Ladybank.

Furness Railway No.20 in the depot yard at Ribble Steam Railway in Preston. This locomotive was one of a batch of eight locomotives constructed by Sharp Stewart of Manchester for the Furness Railway. It was completed in 1863. The rapid growth of traffic on the Furness Railway in the 1860′s resulted in these small four wheeled engines soon becoming obsolescent. In 1870 the first six of the class, F.R. Nos. 17, 18, 19, 20, 25 and 26 were sold to the Barrow Haematite Steel Co. at Barrow. This locomotive continued in traffic until 1960 when diesel locomotives were introduced after which it stood in the ground of a school in Barrow until 1983. Restoration was completed in late 1998 and it is now the country’s oldest working steam locomotive.

Transpennine Express unit 397 010 leave Manchester Oxford Road on a service to Preston.

Former Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway class 27 ('A' Class) locomotive 52322 approaching the Stoneacre Loop on the Yorkshire Dales Railway.

A holiday in Norfolk led to a visit to one of Britain's more remote stations. Greater Anglia FLIRT unit 755334 arrives a Berney Arms with a train from Yarmouth to Norwich. This is the 15.24 service to Norwich which is the first of two weekday departures in that direction.

Corris Railway No.7 arrives at Maespoeth with a train of mixed stock. This little line is steadily reclaiming a good part of the route that was lost when British Railways closed the line in 1948.

Greater Anglia FLIRT unit 755336 crosses the swingbridge over the Yare at Reedham with a train from Lowestoft to Norwich. This bridge sees constant action as the river is busy with boat traffic.

Motive power on the Manchester Ship Canal Railway at Ellesmere Port. Seen at the exchange sidings adjacent to Network Rail just west of Ellesmere Port Station.