London Rail

Tag: railway history

  • Tinpot Railways: Terminal decline

    The good old British railway system! One of the fighter points for the UK’s successful tinpot railway system were its termini. Who needed grand stations with a judicious choice of platforms and stupendous station buildings when a bus stop thingy could do better? Better still – why not push the railway buffers further back and…

  • The UK’s double deck conundrum 2

    This is a post examining the long held refutation that double deck trains simply cannot be used on our gloriously tinpot railway systems. This is the second part of a response I have made claim in regards to a Twitter thread on the subject – and that tweet was yet another refutation the UK could…

  • Young’s Brewery canal

    This is a follow up to other stuff on Wandsworth’s Young’s Ram brewery and the Surrey Iron Railway. Some further stuff related to the former waterway (known as McMurrays canal) which served the town and its brewery was found thus this post was created. Since there’s very little written on this canal, it seemed a…

  • The UK’s double deck conundrum

    A few weeks back I had written draft posts with the title Tinpot Railways – these being about the huge disbenefits of Britain’s railways and the backwards culture that is promulgated – it critically examined the role of our railways in new and unthought of ways. By way of my research I know Japan’s railways quite well…

  • The County Donegal Railways #3

    The third part of the CDRJC feature covering the line’s closure and what can be seen of the railway today. The County Donegal Railways closes The end of the CDRJC. December 1959 notice announcing the system’s closure on 31st December 1959. Source: Twitter Although the closure notice implies all freight services were to finish at…

  • The Tōkaidō Shinkansen

    While we in the UK battle wits over whether a new high speed railway should be built or not, I thought it would be a good idea to do a feature on the world’s first ever high speed railway – the New Tōkaidō Line. It was originally planned in 1940 albeit with lower speeds. Although…

  • The County Donegal Railways #2

    This is part two of the tribute to the famed County Donegal narrow gauge railways which closed on the very last day of 1959. In the first part we took a look at the CDRJC’s route to Ballyshannon and Killybegs. In this second part we look at the CDRJC’s other stations including Derry and Letterkenny,…

  • The County Donegal Railways

    Sixty years ago this week the last passenger trains rain on the County Donegal Railways. Its popular knowledge the last public trains bowed out on December 31st 1959, but what is less known is the railway continued solely as a regular freight operation for a further five weeks or so. Which means, like several other…

  • Whatever happened to Brunel's bridge?

    The famous (since 2004) bridge was dismantled and taken to Portsmouth where it currently resides at Fort Cumberland in Eastney. Few know its there. It seems the stored remains are not even labelled as Brunel’s bridge. At the time of its dismantling there was every promise it would be stored for a short while and…

  • Central Line: beyond Caxton Road #2

    Remember the popular post Central Line: Beyond Caxton Road published more than two years ago? This is a follow up and its based around several old photographs of the area plus some of the latest developments at Westfield. The DIMCO buildings, which some will know were once part of the coal fired power station that…

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