Recent content by timmydunn

Interesting stuff. There is a very comprehensive museum display - including a lot of photographs, news cuttings and plans - of the Halton Camp/Light/RAF Railway in the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre museum. I forget which, but it occupies a standard gauge wagon in our main museum building.

The 455 acquisition is a strategic one. From the SETG press release, as per above post: "the acquisition of 5871 is complementary to the goals of the organisation and will unlock significant fundraising potential, in turn accelerating the return to the mainline for 3417." There are sensible...

Insert "completely innocent halo" emoji here ;)

To assist with queries, the following press release was issued under embargo until this afternoon. Issued by the Southern Electric Traction Group. Not for publication before 16:00, Monday 16 February 2026. Website: www.setg.org.uk

Not as un-railway as you might think. The world's best job - guiding what is, at 1.5 acres, arguably Britain's biggest model railway layout - is being recruited for. The 7.25" gauge Light Railway has carried over 1.2 million (full size) passengers in recent years, and running the Gauge 1 model...

I've included 30-40 here in the piece I wrote for the Railway 200 / Rail bookazine: lots more early stuff in the historical narrative - eg October (1928) - but I do also include the following: https://www.railmagazine.com/features-landing/railways-and-film-the-perfect-match (free to register...

Last chance to get tickets for this! I'm making this post whilst procrastinating over my scripted intros for it, anyway. Anybody have any great facts about specific locomotives seen in the 1925 Railway Centenary Cavalcade that they think I should include? (My fave is still that the mid-victorian...

Hullo. On Tuesday evening next week (2nd September, 6:10pm start) the BFI’s curator of documentary film (Steve Foxon - the chap who was behind the digitisation of the British Transport Films a few years ago, and son of railway film historian Rob Foxon) and I have been allowed to screen TWO...

Oh good, this news is out. The nice thing about it is that it’ll now be on iPlayer for a bit and have an even wider audience range. It’s only series 1 for now, which was filmed the summer before Covid and was screened in April; just when everybody else had run out of programmes, along came me...

YES! Thank you. You are a marvel of the modern age.

...which, from memory, was filmed down the central aisle of a few carriages, was hugely positive and confident in its welcoming of folk back to the railway? I think there was a bloke with a beard - maybe a guard - doing the narration. I had thought it was Scotrail, but I can't find any...

Given that I have given the positive review of the book that has apparently made its back cover (!) I think this is a natural point for me to note that it is a very good read indeed and to recommend it. Disclaimer: He's a good friend, but whilst we mightn't always agree on how railways might fix...

It is rather sad news, especially for my former colleagues - many of whom came to those projects as railway enthusiasts, or indeed finished the projects finding themelves having become such. Those on the forum who have dealings with, or who work in, the media and marketing worlds will know the...

ISTR Virgin’s text-early alert, (“Earlybird” seems to be its consumer name from googling, but I think it was also trialled at another time under a different name) worked pretty well at Euston - it auto texted customers who’d directly booked with Virgin for that specific train (vs those who’d...

I'm going to reply to these, even though you I think you know very well why (a) things are labelled and secret and indeed (b) "the more boring of them" was chosen. If you're being literal about it, then very little in this world is secret. Especially when it comes to *public* transport...