New train services from DLR Mudchute
Its generally assumed the bay platform 3 at Mudchute sees no regular traffic and perhaps only when there’s engineering works or an operating issue that trains get routed into the bay platform. With the enhanced May 2023 timetable upgrade however there’s been a considerable number of Lewisham to Stratford trains…
West Ealing gets battery train infrastructure
This is an exciting time for battery train technology! And that despite the news that HS2 has been all but abandoned. Today trains began serving Headbolt Lane station from Kirby where the present Merseyrail 3rd rail system ends. It was hardly worth the effort to electrify to Headbolt Lane especially…
Snowdon Summit #2
Once upon a time, there was a grand summit building atop the summit of Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa.) It was built in the 1930s by the noted Welsh architect, Clough Williams-Ellis, whose Portmeirion village is famous the world over. By the 1990s had become something of a disreputable place and the…
The problem of space travel…
SpaceX’s Starship – the biggest rocket ever to date – lifted off successfully yesterday but was remotely denontaed after it endured at least a minute and half out of control – at one point it actually faced the other direction – and despite being turned back the other way it…
Rails – to the Moon
Sylvester Marsh was a New England entrepreneur whose proposed mountain line received considerable ridicule when the idea was put forward in the late 1850s – for it was seen as a ‘railway to the moon!’ People thought the idea most inconceivable and it was a struggle for Marsh to get…
Gauge change – Zweisimmen
The Montreux Oberland Bernois (MOB) and the Bern Lötschberg Simplon (BLS) railways have begun through services between Montreux and Interlaken. The project to provide a single train service between the two destinations was put on hold mostly due to the pandemic that took hold of the world in 2020 and…
Snowdon summit
Wales’ highest railway station is at the summit of Snowdon (3560 feet/1085 metres) where for many years there was essentially a proper station with ticket office and waiting rooms, plus semaphore signals and point rodding, levers, etc, all the ‘mod cons’ needed to make the site every inch a true…
Tyne & Wear Metro on the Rigi!
As the news blurb said, it was an unknown train that had heated up the rumor mill. ‘For some time now, a strange train has been standing on track 13 at Arth-Goldau station.’ What was this strange train doing in this part of Switzerland? It was a brand new Tyne…
Rhätische Bahn sets a record!
The Rhaetian Railway established a record for the world’s longest narrow gauge passenger train and exploited the scenic abilities of one of its best lines through the Alps for that attempt. The company ran the 1.9-kilometre-long train composed of 100 coaches on its UNESCO heritage world famous Albula line between…
UK’s monorails
It would often be thought the British Isles and Ireland have no monorails and its Germany (with its two Schwebebahns and the Dusseldorf monorail) or Japan that have a good number of monorails. Surprisingly the UK too once had a number of monorail systems in some its towns and cities…