No. 43058 (with No. 43059 at the rear) makes a glorious sight forming RCS’s 17.18 Skipton to Appleby ‘Staycation Express’ across Ribblehead Viaduct on July 20. STEVE SIENKIEWICZ
OUR ever-changing railways are illustrated no better than by three of our feature articles this month that cover something old, something new, and something being reborn.
The ‘new’ is the incredible work being done at Calvert, Buckinghamshire, that was until recently a railway backwater served only by trains to the waste terminal, but is now a key location on two new main lines. Historically, it was where the Great Central Railway crossed the London North Western Railway’s ‘Varsity’ Line – but soon it will be where HS2 passes under East West Rail, and is also the location for a future HS2 maintenance depot. The scale of construction is already impressive, but we will be back over the months and years to keep tabs on progress until the first trains start running later this decade.
The ‘old’ is a look back to Horncastle’s railway, which closed 50 years ago. The town today is home to The Railway Magazine, but sadly all we can see from our office windows now is the former trackbed following the widespread closure of Lincolnshire’s rural lines in the 1960s and 70s. A fantastic exhibition has been put together locally detailing the line’s history, and I would urge anyone living nearby or on holiday in the area to pay a visit.