Recent content by mdewell

As a former volunteer from the early days of the Epping Ongar Railway, I can shed a little light on some of these. The story I heard was that some were originally imported for use at an 'attraction' in SW England that never opened. One of the owners of EOR (there were originally 5 owners) had...

Last year I was reading something about poor rail journeys and naturally some of my own experiences came to mind. Like most people I probably remember a bad journey more that a good one, so decided to start keeping a log of my rail trips. I am just an occasional user these days so not many trips...

Unfortunately for you, many railways like to give their Ops staff a break in early Nov before starting, what is for most a very busy period, i.e. running their Santa Specials at weekends from end of Nov through to Xmas. If you can possibly manage a earlier trip, October often has end of season...

A list can be found at http://www.heritage-railways.com/locosdb/locosdb.php Search for type '43' (Unfortunately it will also find a few other '43's but . . .) You may also be interested in the 125 Heritage (https://125heritage.co.uk/) and 125 group (https://www.125group.org.uk/)

Which of course means that if DSD is operational, trains can safely be single manned. Useful if the railway is short of staff/volunteers.

I have just over 3,700 listed as preserved in my Database at http://www.heritage-railways.com/locosdb/locos.php Probably only about half are in operational condition. No idea about mainline locomotives (although some of those I list are 'mainline operational')

Here's my list :) Would point out though that there is more to heritage railways than simply line length. E.g. Have you visited Didcot? Railway Length Gauge Welsh Highland Railway 25 2ft Wensleydale Railway 22 4ft 8.5in West Somerset Railway 20 4ft 8.5in North Yorkshire Moors Railway...

Possibly Motor Rail 9976 http://www.heritage-railways.com/locosdb/locosdb2.php?RefNo=3275

Anyone interested in this might also like to have a look at the Historical Model Railway Society website at https://hmrs.org.uk Their website includes comprehensive links pages.

Other than possible cosmetic restoration of the bodywork, nobody will be doing anything with it because it's just an empty shell and has been since before preservation.

Yes they did. I was lucky enough to be involved with the GWS at the time and got to travel in them on a couple of occasions (A fact that I appreciate much more now that I did at the time - how we take things for granted!) I think the original withdrawal of the GWS Vintage Train from mainline use...

Another slight concern that doesn't seem to have been mnetioned yet, is that stopping a train near, but not actually in a platform might result in someone opening doors and stepping out into thin air. Yes, I know it would be extremely stupid of them, but sillier things have been known to...

This is just one reason why we have https://www.hra.uk.com/all-party-parliamentary-group-on-heritage-rail :)

I don't know about all DMUs, but the class 117 that I used to drive on EOR had a seperate brake application handle on the second mans side of the cab, so any driver on the 'wrong' side of the cab could still make an emergency brake application without having to cross the cab.

I was counting the Transfer Shed and Oxford Road as 1, but . . . :D