Rail Express

A CLASS 769 bi-mode conversion finally entered revenue-earning service on November 16, when No. 769002 (rebuilt from No. 319002) was put into traffic on the Cardiff Valleys. The first timetabled train to be worked by the former Class 319 was the 2F08

WITH the RHTT season in full swing in November there is very little to report from DBC’s fleet. No. 67016 was stored WQAA at Crewe, while Euro Cargo Rail No. 66247 – returned to the UK in July with No. 66211 for attention at Toton (see September issu

NETWORK Rail has revealed more details of the 570 new vehicles that will be built by Greenbrier-Astra Rail, leased from the Swiss company Wascosa, and maintained by GB Railfreight under a 10-year agreement (see Headline news last issue) Just under ha

BY late November, ScotRail had taken delivery of 19 of its 21 rebuilt HST sets, although some are stored at Slateford pending entry to service. Like many other train operators, ScotRail has not required as much capacity on its services, and as a resu

THE fourth ex-LNER rake to enter service with EMR, set NL58, put in its first appearance on November 23 – although it was only formed of six coaches, and two of these were borrowed from another set that was also reduced to six vehicles. In the format

Correct to November 23, 2020 10415 SBXH-MBCS 40103/05/08/10/11/16 off registration – scrapped 40806/10/11 off registration – scrapped 40807 SBXH-MBCS 41161 SBXH-MBCS 41186/92 off registration – scrapped 42103 off registration – scrapped 42151 NL/EMH

RAILWAY Support Services has been busy shuffling its Class 08s around during the period under review. Having returned to the RSS base at Wishaw (Warwickshire) following its radiator failure at Wolverton, No. 08730 was released back into traffic onNov

THE first scheduled run with LSL’s Class 55 No. 55022 Royal Scots Grey is pencilled in for Saturday-Monday July 24-26, when the ‘Deltic’ will work Saphos Trains’ ‘The Elizabethan’ from King’s Cross to York. From York, newly restored A4 No. 60007 Sir

THE 125 Group has taken ownership of its second HST power car, No. 43048. The Class 43, which was stopped by East Midlands Railway after a trip to Skegness on September 12, was moved from Long Marston to UK Rail Leasing’s Leicester depot by another p

THE Heritage Electric Trains Trust has announced that its 4-SUB unit, No. 4732, has been offered a permanent home at the former Hornby factory at Margate, now the home to the growing One:One collection that includes exhibits such as ‘Deltic’ No. D901

The 11.20 Connolly to Lanyon Place on October 27 was delayed by a ‘train fault’. The De Dietrich/Mk.3 train terminated at Portadown and passengers transferred to a NIR DMU to continue the journey to Lanyon Place. The return working, 14.05 ex-Lanyon P

IRISH Rail’s track monitoring Sperry Train was active over large parts of the network during the period under review. GM No. 072 hauled the train from North Wall to Dundalk on October 27, then hauled the three vehicle consist to Newry the next day, w

Think you can do better? If you’ve taken something newsworthy, artistic or technically interesting on a mobile device, send it in to railexpresseditor@mortons.co.uk and we’ll pay our normal rates for any used in the magazine. ■

HIGH SUMMER: With all the events of 2020, this is one shot we were unable to find room for at the time, but which rightly deserves a place before we move on into 2021. It shows DRS Type 3s Nos. 37407 Blackpool Tower and 37423 in glorious light, and w

ON June 30, 1989 – 51 years to the day since London Underground’s 1938 Stock entered passenger service on the Northern Line – the first two-car set destined for the Isle of Wight emerged from overhaul at Eastleigh Works, Hampshire. The vehicles had b

THE unloading at Dublin Port of new locomotives built by General Motors’ Electro-Motive Division (GM-EMD) for Coras Iompair Eireann (CIE) was a familiar sight in the 1960s and 1970s, write William Watson and Alan McFerran. However on December 16, 198

FALCON BOUGHT: Brush’s prototype Type 4 Co-Co diesel-electric locomotive No. D0280 Falcon – which featured two Maybach MD655 engines similar to those used in the diesel-hydraulic ‘Westerns’ – was purchased by British Railways, repainted into blue liv

RAPIDO TRAINS launched its direct entry to the UK market on December 1 with a new website (www.rapidotrains.co.uk) and an announcement for six models including a new Class 28 locomotive. Trading as Rapido Trains UK, the company is no stranger to prod

THREE liveries have been revealed by Cavalex Models for its forthcoming ‘OO’ gauge Diagram JG010B PHA/JGA bogie aggregate wagon of the BHQ17130-151 number series. Conclusion of the CAD process has allowed the cost of tooling and production to be asse

FIRST of the Class 37s, No. D6700, has been added to the National Collection in Miniature range by Locomotion Models, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of its delivery from English Electric’s Newton le Willows works to Doncaster for acceptance tria

MK.1 General Utility Vans (GUV) in ‘OO’ gauge are produced by Hornby, using the Lima tooling, and Bachmann with a completely new model introduced a number of years ago. The latter has more refinement than the former Lima model as one might expect inc

BIOMASS traffic makes the news pages again, with reports of the commencement of metal being cut for a brand new ‘N’ gauge model of the Drax IIA-D biomass hopper wagon, with Revolution Trains expecting the first engineering prototypes in early 2021. T

Brand-new ‘OO’ gauge models of the British Steel Corporation (BSC) PTA iron ore tippler wagon (and derivatives) have caused a lot of excitement in the D&E modelling community. The model is based on the design equipped with BSC ‘Axle Motion’ bogies wh