September 2002

NEWS FOCUS SPECIAL:
A SEASIDE SPECIAL BREAKING VIRGIN TERRITORY
Thirty years ago, the last through trains ran from Swanage to the national network. On September 8, Virgin Railways is set to run a brand new Class 221 Voyager tilting train to the seaside resort - marking an exciting new stage in the railway’s revival and a watershed in plans to restore regular public all-year-round services to Wareham, as Robin Jones reports.

GOOLE DOCKS STEAM COMEBACK
Russ Hillier’s July 27/28 photo charter starring Midland Railway ‘half cab’ 0-6-0T No. 41708 in two different guises resulted in the first return of workaday steam to Goole Docks since steam finished in the area over 40 years ago, as Geoff Silcock reports.

BETWEEN TODAY & YESTERDAY: IRONBRIDGE AND THE IRON HORSE
Building a link between Ironbridge, the cradle of the Industrial Revolution, and the Severn Valley Railway, one of Britain’s top heritage lines, has for long been regarded as both a dream ticket and a pipe dream. However, local councils now want to study the possibility, however remote, of reinstating the missing link between the two. Robin Jones and Brian Sharpe look at the nine-mile route and the future prospects.

FREEDOM OF AMERICA
The September 11 attack on the Twin Towers touched every facet of American life, and among the many repercussions has been the repainting of one of the United States’ most celebrated steam engines in commemoration of this wave of national patriotism. Brian Sharpe looks at the latest unexpected twist in the resurgence of steam superpower on the West Coast.

INDUSTRIAL SCENE:
BUCKETS OF SAND - BUT NO SEA!
Visitors to the Leighton Buzzard Railway’s big September 7/8 gala will be able to see both the official debut of Matheran Light Railway locomotive No. 740 and the splendid results of more than three decades of work in transforming an obscure sand-carrying concern into one of Britain’s top narrow gauge railways, as Laurence Osborne outlines.

LOST TREASURES OF THE LSWR
The opening up of the West Country to the summer holiday trade in late Victorian times intensified bitter rivalry between the GWR and LSWR. This selection of mainly unpublished photographs from the John Crawley collection looks back at lost classes of locomotives to be seen in the heyday of the LSWR, and a survivor which is set to ignite universal interest when it returns to steam later this year.