Ffestiniog 70 years of achievement

What better way of celebrating both the Ffestiniog Railway’s 70th anniversary and ‘Railway 200’ than with an epic four-day gala culminating in a spectacular cavalcade? THOMAS BRIGHT finds out how the FR pulled off one of the events of the year.

When we are asked who invented the railways, we can confidently say we did – Britain. But precisely who was involved and how it all developed is a long story. By the end of the 18th century, the Indus

Long-serving Ffestiniog Railway volunteer and current FR Magazine editor JOHN DOBSON recalls his early encounters with the railway back in the 1950s.

When did railways begin? It certainly wasn’t 1825, says HOWARD JOHNSTON, as he concludes his round-up of the 1925 Stockton & Darlington centenary cavalcade.

ABOVE: On June 2, 1980, 20066 hauls a coal train from Markam Colliery formed of mineral wagons and hoppers at Barrow Hill, having just come off the line from Hall Lane Junction and Seymour Junction. C

Stood alone inside Derby Litchurch Lane at 07.30 on Saturday, August 2, day two of The Greatest Gathering, the biggest railway event in decades, it was eerily quiet. It wouldn’t be like this in 30, 60