This is a follow up to the post I did the other day on Young’s Ram brewery at Wandsworth. The reason this is being done is because I discovered some further stuff related to the former waterway (known as McMurrays canal) which once served the town and its brewery. Since […]
Historical
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This is an anniversary post! Its not any special one but rather its thirty years since I had a tour around the famous Ram Brewery at Wandsworth. I thought I’d make a wee dram out of it! Young’s (or Ram) Brewery was one of those great London places with loads […]
The tube was the first passenger railway in the UK to adopt any form of automated train control or rather as it was known in those days, Centralised Train Control (CTC.) This was indeed the first in Europe and was installed on the Metropolitan Railway’s new branch to Stanmore. It […]
I am writing this because I have seen two of Martin Zero’s videos on the excellent work by James Brindley, which revolves around the construction undertaken in the 1750s to resolve both flooding issues as well as give an abundant working water supply to the mines around the Irwell Valley […]
North Downs Steam Railway? Never heard of it! Surely you mean the North Downs Line? No it wasn’t that! Where was this other railway then? It was a short-lived heritage line in North Kent, based not far from the southern end of the Dartford tunnel. The NDSR began life with […]
While we in the UK battle wits over whether a new high speed railway should be built or not, I thought it would be a good idea to do a feature on the world’s first ever high speed railway – the New Tokaido Line. It was originally planned in 1940 […]
Today is the sixtieth anniversary of the closure of South Wales famous electric railway, the Swansea and Mumbles. It was a very unusual line being one of the world’s first ever passenger railways, and despite being described as a tramway, legally it was a main line railway. The final train […]
The famous (since 2004) bridge was dismantled and taken to Portsmouth where it currently resides at Fort Cumberland in Eastney. Few know its there. It seems the stored remains are not even labelled as Brunel’s bridge. At the time of its dismantling there was every promise it would be stored […]
Trans Karoo express traversing the Hex River vineyards. This week its the 30th anniversary of what was initially Africa’s longest railway tunnel and certainly its the second longest narrow gauge tunnel in the world, just coming behind the Furka base tunnel in Switzerland. The Hex tunnel is 8 and a […]
This stupendous Victorian construction has reached its 150th year. The reason for its construction was to enable a completely level route from Bank to Holborn without descending to the Fleet Valley. Its often not realised there are two parts to this scheme, the much bigger bridge over Farringdon Street, and […]
A branch line in London N1 perhaps? Nope. Its a part of London that’s been known by this name since the sixteenth century and also because of a well known pub, once a music hall, famous for hosting Charlie Chaplin and Marie Lloyd. Its a central London location but also […]
Its that time again, station after station, railway after railway. ALL the stations on the Isle of Man episode two released yesterday. But what’s this? The Manx Electric Railway ‘All The Stations?’ It looked like ALL the MER stations but it wasn’t actually in terms of the lines history and […]