Tag: railway history

  • The Scole Railway

    The Scole Railway is one of Britain’s most obscure lines. It was a system built to serve farmland and market gardens. Passengers were never carried. The Scole Railway is considered one of the pioneer systems built for the specific purpose of serving farms and agriculture. The system connected with the main Great Eastern line at…

  • A Tower Subway memo

    A London Inheritance published a post detailing the Tower Subway and also implied the southern end of the subway happened to be a mystery because it could not be ascertained whether the modern structure behind the Unicorn Theatre in Vine Lane was indeed its southern end. Its not its original southern end however the tunnel…

  • One might have thought Yup its Pompeii! Celebrating Rail 2000 had been written in jest, for there are no railways to be found two thousands years ago – and yet in that article there were a couple of illustrations depicting steam trains within the Pompeii landscape! There’s every possibility people thought this was a joke…

  • Alright, buckle up railway fans because we’re about to embark on a thrilling journey of pre-industrial rail travel! Forget your high-speed bullet trains and reclining seats – and that means a focus upon Railways 2000! We’re going back to a time when “comfort” meant not getting splinters in your, shall we say, posterior. Italians invented…

  • 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…

  • I’m thrilled to share that this blog has gained a sponsor! I reached out to a well-known figure – its someone whose name many could well recognize! Alas his understanding of railway issues was once problematic and even though the reasoning was brilliantly delivered, there were numerous issues with the methodology employed. It pandered to…

  • The fact Cockfosters station – an appraisal was popular prompted me to dig out this further look at one of the Piccadilly line’s iconic tube stations. Although we regularly visited Southgate in the 1960s, at no time was the Piccadilly line ever used this far. However the station certainly is remembered because this was where…

  • Despite being the butt of many a joke, ‘Cock Fosters’ as it once was, is a real place and noted for being the northern terminus of the Piccadilly Line. The location itself prior to the opening of the tube was not even a major settlement of any sort, just a small school and a vicarage.…

  • In the very early days of London’s premier underground line – the Central London Railway (CLR) or the twopenny tube as it was popularly known, procured its first ever fatality. It wasn’t a passenger but a member of staff and the matter was down to the staff in question having taken offence to someone smoking…

  • 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…