British rail’s weirdest railways…

Arguably, the British Railways of 1965 was not the same as that created in 1948, and yet in some ways it was, as there were some traditional operating methods and a staff mindset that had failed to ev

An envelope of old pictures has turned Chris Leigh ’s thoughts to narrow gauge and how times have changed where ready-to-run narrow gauge is concerned.

he British Transport Commission’s Modernisation of the Railway report was released on January 25, 1955, by its chairman, Sir Brian Robertson, and suggested a £1.24 billion spend on the railways to upd

This was not an all that well-patronised rail tour, but perhaps because of that, it was very enjoyable and very successful (in a way). It was a fine day for what proved to be the last steam working fr

The County Donegal Railways system was surprising in many ways: in the mountainous terrain (to Irish standards) that its trains had to get through, in the lovely cherry red colour with which it blesse

Our next extract from Bradley’s Railway Guide: A Journey Through Two Centuries of British Railway History 1825-2005 takes us to 1960… and the seaside