Tracks to the Trenches…

On 12 Sep 201412 Sep 2014 By geoffspagesIn Photography, Railways...Leave a comment

…was great fun – an excellent afternoon’s entertainment provided by the Moseley Railway Trust at their Apedale Valley Railway. There really were 2’0″ gauge tracks running to real trenches, WW1-style. It’s amazing how much railway equipment (a) has survived from the First World War, and (b) was assembled at Apedale for the event.

There will be many more photos, on the Rail Diaries, in due course – but not for a day or two. Tomorrow it’s Statfold. In the meantime, here’s a sample – Baldwin 4-6-0T no. 778 (BLW 44656 of 1917) in action on the Apedale main line.

Apedale Valley Light Railway

A welcome return to steam

On 26 Aug 2014 By geoffspagesIn Photography, Railways...Leave a comment

There have been some remarkable restorations and rebuilds in recent years (some wonderful new builds too). Surely the most unlikely rebuild to date is this one – Hudswell Clarke 1238 of 1916 fell into a river in Ghana, during a storm in 1948. It lay there, abandoned and forgotten, for 48 years. Today, at the Statfold Barn Railway, it made its formal return to active service for its owners, the Moseley Railway Trust. For more on today’s events, visit “1238 – Welcome Back” on Geoff’s Rail Diaries, and for more details of the project, visit this page on the Moseley Railway Trust’s Fleet List.