FROM THE RAILWAY MAGAZINE ARCHIVES
YEARS AGO Day trips for Swindon Works staff
AUGUST 1920
OVER 24,000 inhabitants of Swindon, or nearly half the population of the railway town, dispersed to the four quarters of the United Kingdom on Friday, July 2, by the Great Western Railway trip trains for employees at the company’s works. Many special trains were engaged from the very early hours of the morning conveying trippers at the rate of more than 2,000 per hour.
New timetables for sixpence
THE Great Western Railway, in July, resumed the practice of issuing time books to the public, which had been discontinued owing to conditions created by the war. During the war sections of ‘Bradshaw’ were reprinted for staff purposes only. The new timetables cover the period from July 12 to September 30, 1920, and are published at the price of sixpence. They comprise 184 clearly printed pages and good maps of different sections of the system.
YEARS AGO Rescues and reopening on Anglesey
AUGUST 1970
FOLLOWING the fire which closed the Britannia Bridge over the Menai Straits in May, several locomotives and special traffic wagons, required to maintain services on the mainland, were stranded on Anglesey. A total of 11 diesel locomotive were involved, and these have been shipped from Holyhead using the Kingsnorth Fisher. The locomotives travelled to Valley to be separated from their bogies, the bodies being taken back to Holyhead on Pickfords lorries and the bogies returning by rail for loading into the Kingsnorth Fisher. Individual locomotives shipped off Anglesey on June 19 and 24 were Class 24 No. 5083, Class 47 Nos. 1724, 1851 and 1940, and Class 40 Nos. 219, 231, 232, 233, 241, 307 and 390. The locos were shipped to Barrow-in-Furness to be reunited with their bogies.
‘Flying Scotsman’ in North America
FOLLOWING its American Mid-West tour from Slaton, Texas, via Kansas City and St Louis to Green Bay National Railway Museum, Chicago, during June and July, the ‘Flying Scotsman’ train is expected to begin this year’s ‘Trade Mission proper’ tour on August 25. Provisional itinerary includes visits to the following cities: Milwaukee, Chicago, South Bend, Detroit, classicmagazines.co.uk/rmarchive
London, Toronto, Kingston, Ottawa, Montreal, Kingston, Hamilton, Niagara Falls, Buffalo, Cleveland, Toledo, Fort Wayne, and back to Chicago.
YEARS AGO Connex adopt ‘Big Brother tactics on fare evasion
AUGUST 2000
WLTH fare evasion by passengers costing TOCs millions of pounds in lost revenues, Connex plain-clothes staff are to watch what type of ticket is being bought and then follow passengers to their destination – no matter how far – before confronting them. The company has taken this drastic step after staff noticed ticket sales from Cannon Street to London Bridge shot up from 631 to more than 5,200 per month, and also at Victoria where sales of £1 tickets to Battersea Park rose by 800 per cent.
GCR commisions double track
IT HAS taken more than ten years to achieve and cost £1.2m, but the Great Central Railway’s vision of a double-track main line finally became reality on June 1 when five miles of twin permanent way were commissioned by GCR president David Clarke – the man whose generosity has made the scheme possible. The GC is now unique within the UK heritage movement with the ability to pass passenger and goods trains at speed fulfilling its mission statement: ‘Re-creating the experience’.