Electric Railroad: Rockies #1
Forty years ago one of America’s most iconic and controversial transcontinental lines closed down for good, having worked for just over seventy years. This was the only electric line that stretched right across the Rockies & popularly called the Milwaukee Road. Despite the controversies surrounding its construction this once expensive,…
Whatever happened to the North Downs Railway?
North Downs Steam Railway? Never heard of it! Surely you mean the North Downs Line? No it wasn’t that! Where was this other railway then? It was a short-lived heritage line in North Kent, based not far from the southern end of the Dartford tunnel. The NDSR began life with…
Woodhead #3
Part three of a special feature – this time its both the EM1s (Class 76) and the EM2s (Class 77.) The former was one that hauled a special railtour which I travelled on through the Woodhead tunnel in the seventies. The EM2s were express locomotives but made redundant far earlier…
Woodhead #2
Part two of a special feature on the Woodhead line. Here we see the electrified 1500v dc line in its heyday, after its closure in 1984 and during demolition of the route. The closure and demolition was controversial at the time – and still is today – because the Woodhead…
Woodhead Tunnel
A tribute to the closed railway tunnel and also its famous EM2 locomotives. The tunnel was the UK’s longest landward example built in the 20th Century. Two major collapses caused huge delays in construction. Total cost was £4.3 million. It opened over a year late in 1954 as part of…
Southwold Railway
The Southwold Railway – England’s premier three foot narrow gauge passenger railway! This week its ninety years since the last passenger trains ran. 2019 is also the 140th anniversary of the line’s opening. This somewhat quirky railway was in service for just fifty years, and remained moribund for several decades…
King’s Cross old tunnel
The ‘Widened Lines’ (or what is left of them) are rail tunnels between St Pancras and Farringdon now used by Thameslink. The tunnels were a joint venture between the Great Northern and Metropolitan Railways and completed in 1866. Historically the lines also linked to King’s Cross mainline station as well…