Backtrack -julkaisun Volume 39 No 9 - September 2025 -irtonumeron sisällysluettelo

This is a story of how a serious fatal accident occurred in the absence of the station master who had not left anybody else in charge of his station. It also relates just what was happening there and how almost everybody involved had been accustomed to things just running so smoothly that they were unprepared when the unexpected occurred. Many railway accidents for which I have seen either newspaper descriptions or official Board of Trade (BoT) inquiry reports have involved one or more trains either colliding with another one, while less frequently a train has struck part of the railway infrastructure such as a bridge or a tunnel. There have, however, been few instances where part of the company's mobile plant, such as a crane, has been the primary cause…

The Manchester & Birmingham Railway opened between Manchester and Stockport (six miles) on 4th July 1840. Not until 28th September 1841was the focus of attention turned to the provision of a carriage and engine depot. This intention is evinced by the appearance of a contract advertisement in the Manchester Courier, 28th September 1841: “Notice is hereby given, that the Directors of the Manchester & Birmingham Railway, will meet at their offices, No.43, Piccadilly, Manchester, on Thursday, 21st October, at twelve o'clock, to RECEIVE TENDERS for the following: the erection of a LOCOMOTIVE ENGINE HOUSE, CARRIAGE HOUSE, AND OTHER BUILDINGS, in the depot at Longsight, which is about one mile and a half from the town of Manchester.” The 1848 six-inch OS map of the Longsight district of Manchester reveals that…

In Part One (June) we showed some photographs of British-built locomotives at work on the Richmond Vale colliery railway of J. & A. Brown in New South Wales taken on a visit to Australia in 1968. Here we show a further selection of photographs from that same trip, this time focusing on a number of Beyer Peacock-built or designed locomotives operated by New South Wales Government Railways (NSWGR).…

A study commissioned by London Museum Docklands recently revealed the moments in UK history that we would most like to have witnessed. A top 25 of these moments published in my daily rag confirmed that ‘riding the first steam train’ in 1825 came in at number 10 whilst another notable debut on the railways, the ‘first Underground opens’ (the Metropolitan Railway, aka the London Underground) was at No.12. That 1825 event was of course the opening of the Stockton & Darlington Railway (S&DR) in the industrial north east of England on 27th September of that year. The Bill to authorise the railway had been approved at the second time of asking after a three-year campaign but this was only for horse traction, the use of steam locomotives requiring a later…

This was one of the first Midland Railway stations in Bedfordshire and this article chronicles its history, together with some of the local social life. In Backtrack (May 2022) an article outlined how the Midland Railway had arrived in Bedfordshire and the problems the company had encountered en route. This article continues the story south and the new problems facing the Midland. In just over the 7½ miles between Sharnbrook and Bedford the railway has to cross the meandering River Ouse six times. With the failure of one of the piers of the first viaduct, all haste was made to complete a new viaduct adjacent to the original 1857 one. One assumes that traffic continued to use this, perhaps with single line working. This must have been a very busy…

Todmorden is the most improbable of sites for a main line railway junction. Surrounded by windswept moorland, it owes its existence to the Ice Age. Melting glaciers created two narrow and steep-sided valleys that gouged deep into the heart of the Pennines. Starting close to the watershed, the Cliviger Gorge carried the infant River Calder down to the cramped confines of Todmorden where it was joined by the Walsden Gorge. The two then formed the only slightly wider Calderdale by way of Hebden Bridge before it gradually broadened on the approaches to Halifax. The Cliviger Gorge created a relatively low-lying route through the Pennine Chain between Burnley and Todmorden. It touched the 750ft contour and came to be used by what began as an eight-mile single track branch linking the…

The name ‘Metropolitan’ today prompts thoughts of one of the well-known ‘Lines’ of the London Underground system and its familiar electric trains. However, from its early days as a ‘cut and cover’ railway linking Paddington, Euston, King's Cross and the City, the Metropolitan extended gradually until it regarded itself as a main line railway reaching through the developing outer London suburbs into Buckinghamshire at Aylesbury and connections with the GCR and LNWR. Passenger and goods trains required a modest fleet of steam locomotives, some examples of which are featured here.…

Regular readers of Backtrack may recall the various articles I have written over recent years dealing with the visits I was able to make between St. Pancras and Sharnbrook on the Midland Main Line. This was possible because I had been able to obtain a lineside photographic permit in order to photograph the signal boxes that would close with the electrification of the St. Pancras to Bedford route. One part of the route that I was able to visit on more than one occasion was the Cricklewood/Brent area. With its fast, local and goods pairs of track with additional goods lines it was an area which, at the time of my visits, still required three signal boxes to control the layout. Cricklewood Junction was on the up side of the…