September issue of The Railway Magazine

Have you seen our latest issue? Features include:

*Didcot Railway Centre – how it all began

A letter in the August 1961 issue of The Railway Magazine appealing to save an ex-GWR ‘14XX’ 0-4-2T locomotive proved to be the catalyst to creating Didcot Railway Centre. Chris Milner shares some of the early founders’ memories and looks at some of their achievements.

*Depot visit: Central Rivers

The ‘Voyager’ fleet operated by @ Cross Country and Avanti West Coast has clocked up almost 400 million miles in 20 years, supported in that time by the team at Central Rivers depot – which, as Paul Bickerdyke discovers, can see up to half the fleet pass through it in a typical day.

*Preservation: Minehead revisited

John Heaton FCILT experiences the literary ‘twitch upon a thread’ and returns to the West Somerset Railway to see how it is recovering from the Covid-19 lockdowns and other challenges to running a successful heritage railway operation.

*Infrastructure: Getting a bird’s eye view

Phil Marsh meets Network Rail’s Air Operations Team, which provides a unique view of the network from above using helicopters and drones.

*Practice & Performance: Travelling more in hope

John Heaton FCILT uncovers the fascinating tale of a notorious Leeds to York stopper in the late Fifties that had a particularly poor reputation for punctuality... unless the locomotive inspector was aboard.

...Plus all the regular news, photo galleries and developments across the world of railways.

Get your paper or digital copy from https://www.classicmagazines.co.uk/current-issue/rm/source/trm129 – or from all good newsagents.