The day tube staff dropped in on a happy honeymoon couple
One would think from the title that this was some happy event not ever recorded previously in any blog or other media. You know, quite a big surprise and balloons and a buffet and the rest of it so as to make the honeymoon couple have a most memorable occasion…
The Tokyo to Osaka Line #6: Addenda
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…
The Tokyo to Osaka Line: A history #5
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…
The Tokyo to Osaka Line #7: Addenda
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…
Crossrail – the Old Oak scene
I bet you never realised Crossrail had major working sites at both of West London’s ‘Oaks!’ That is, Royal Oak and Old Oak. The former is the location where the tunnels begin their journey to either East or South East London, and the latter is where the company built and…
Southwold Railway #3
Forty years of dereliction and decay: After closure the line remained derelict for the next twenty years or so. There were moves to reopen it, none of which came to fruition. Most of the route’s track remained until the early forties. The army blew up part of the Blyth bridge…
The Tokyo to Osaka Line: A history #4
The fourth instalment in this comprehensive series on the origins of the Shinkasen! This covers a series of photographs of the line’s construction between Tokyo and Osaka, with the former and latter stations well represented, as seen during 1963. There’s also some detail about the construction of the New Tanna…
Mystery DMU tunnel!
This was a true rarity! A tunnel used to stable DMUs between journeys, and as far as I know, there was only one example outside of urban areas on Britain’s railway system (although there are other examples where DMUs reversed in tunnels to take up duties in the other direction.)…
Alfred County Railway
The Alfred County Railway was a two foot gauge line from Port Shepstone to Harding in KwaZulu Natal. Running for slightly less than a hundred years, it closed for good about five years or so ago after several attempts to revive its fortunes by way of tourism as well as…
Rail trespassers of 1965
On many railways around the world its apparently quite okay to walk upon or by a railway line even though the operating authorities would really rather people didn’t do it. In a few countries it isn’t even an any sort of okay and Britain is one of those where trespassing’s…