Category: Standard Gauge
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Today (Saturday 31st January 2026) Great Western Railway’s battery train (Class 230) began public service. Initially it will operate Saturdays only with a view to increased coverage during the week as the year progresses. I attended the first day’s operation in the early morning with the 08.15, 08.45 and 09.15 trips from West Ealing to…
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The picturesque upper Lötschental is where the recent calamity involving the village of Blatten occurred. It is a disaster of gigantic proportions and the huge avalanche and mud slide from the Birch glacier has buried the village to a depths of between 50 and 200 metres. That’s pretty deep if one thinks about it. Fifty…
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A famed British Rail ship that’s for sale? Erm, which one was this then? Well it was one that stood right by water but it was also one that never floated! The last ‘captain’ of the said ‘ship’ had been one who owned a world-wide business concern that included a privatised yet highly reputable railway…
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Cab ride on Crossrail (aka TfL Rail/Elizabeth line) in December 2019 which was filmed and uploaded to Youtube – hence this is a 5th anniversary post of sorts! The event in question was the first day TfL Rail services to Reading officially started. In a report written on that full Class 345 round trip it…
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Well after 186 years it finally happened! GWR trains go to Euston! That had been the original intention back in the 1830s when Brunel and the London and Birmingham Railway had agreed to share the new terminus at Euston. What happened next was a series of disagreements which led to Brunel setting his mind upon…
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Following the publication of the five parts of the The Tokyo to Osaka Line covering the classic railway route and the Tōkaidō Shinkansen, three further parts were drawn up covering other aspects of the New Tōkaidō Line. In other words mostly stuff that’s little known to the English speaking world! Due to numerous problems with…
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Avery is of course the western end of the noted 440 mile long Rockies electrification. However the company also ran another electrics division that traversed the Cascades in Washington state, and these tracks led to Seattle and Tacoma. The latter was of course the absolute extremity of any of the Milwaukee’s electrified lines even though…
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Following the publication of the five parts of the The Tokyo to Osaka Line covering the classic railway route and the Tōkaidō Shinkansen, the sixth, seventh and eighth parts were drawn up covering other aspects of the New Tōkaidō Line. In other words mostly stuff that’s little known to the English speaking world! High speed…
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Following the publication of the five parts of the The Tokyo to Osaka Line covering the classic railway route and the Tōkaidō Shinkansen, follow ups were drafted. Largely completed with technical stuff and other gems on the New Tōkaidō Line, as well as its drivers and engineers etc. In other words other aspects of the…
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The year is now 1964 and the New Tokaido Line is ready to be opened! The 515.4 kilometres (320miles) between Tokyo and Osaka was opened to critical acclaim in October 1964 and instantly became a world wide hit. High speed trains were the future! In the line’s early days the services were limited to a…
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