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Here’s a quiz question. What type of train emits steam and water but is not a steam engine? Answer: it’s a hydrogen train – the first generation of which are planned for Britain’s railways, using converted former commuter trains from Essex. The stock is being developed by Alstom with the leasing company Eversholt Rail and […]

  IT’S 50 years ago this month that steam locomotives last ran in regular service on the main lines of  British Railways. For me these were days filled with nostalgia as I spent my gap year of 1967-68 travelling the country on railrovers trying to ride behind the last remnants of steam before it disappeared. […]

‘Northern Fail’, ‘Network Fail’ – and everyone else seems to be failing in this latest debacle on the railways where the new May timetables have led to thousands of cancellations across the country, mostly on Northern Rail and Govia Thameslink. As the poor bloody commuters suffer, those in charge play the blame game. Transport Secretary […]

Once upon a time, one of the most romantic sights on the railways was a glamorous locomotive at the head of a  train, waiting to whisk its passengers off to some far-off destination. Gleaming paintwork, polished brass, often an evocative name, the locos and their numbers were often legendary, such as Mallard and No. 4472, […]

I hardly thought I would ever say this, but Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell may be onto something when they say they want to bring the railways back into national ownership. There’s certainly a public appetite after the long-running guards’ fiasco on Southern and Stagecoach and Virgin getting their sums wrong on the East Coast […]

I’VE  just read quite the most charming and delightful book about trains that’s crossed my desk for ages. It’s a celebration of Britain’s narrow gauge railways along whose tracks author Chris Arnot has taken a highly entertaining national odyssey. These little railways, most of which are run today by preservationists, were often originally built to […]

A NICE review sent by email today from a reader Malcolm Margerison: Quite by chance, I recently picked up your book “The Trains Now Departed” in the local library. I say “by chance”, because I happened to catch sight of it on a trolley of returned books waiting to be put back on the appropriate shelves; […]

A WONDERFUL day at a reunion of old colleagues from the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo, where I started my career in journalism back in 1971 before I went on to The Times in London and spent many ensuing years in the national press.  More than sixty people came along from the 1960s to 1990s. […]