Bo'ness and Kinneil Railway Thread

Tony2 said:

The class 117 at Bo’ness has done the full run to Manuel Junction in the past.

My records show it working 1110 Bo’ness- Manual Junction and 1140 return shortly after it arrived at Bo’ness on 28/12/24.

The steepest gradient on the line is a short section north of Birkhill, can’t remember the exact gradient but I had a profile for building the route for the Trainz simulator many years ago.

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InvernessTMD said:

I wanted to ask a few miscellaneous questions about the B&KR and found there wasn't a pre-existing thread so thought it fit to start my own, for questions about the home fleet and railway happenings not covered in the SRPS or LSL threads =)

Firstly... where is the 8F?! I've looked all over Bo'ness. The restoration shed has her tender but the locomotive, frame, drivers, anything, is out of sight. I even took part in a wonderful guided tour through the diesel, steam and carriage sheds, and she didn't appear there either. I'm almost certain that she isn't at the railway anymore. Where did she go?

Secondly, why does their Class 117 DMU only do shuttles to Birkhill and back? As someone too young to have hitched a ride on these during their service life with BR or privatised operators, I think it's fantastic fun being able to see out the front of the train while moving, not to mention the great noise from the transmission and engines and comfy benches. Unfortunately it only operates a roughly 40 minute shuttle to Birkhill instead of the full hour and a bit journey to Manuel and back. I'd love to spend some more time on it but it seems impossible. I'm not sure if it has ever done the full journey to Manuel? Is it incapable of climbing a grade or similar, or maybe some form of weight limit (although I doubt a little first generation DMU is heavier than a fully laden consist of Mk1s pulled by a tractor!)

Finally, I'm interested as to the states of a few of the out of service locomotives of the diesel fleet. 27001 I have seen running personally, and it's a little disheartening to see it sidelined over the last few years with the SRPS diesel website simply listing it as "out of service". 20020 hasn't been on the rails for probably a little under a decade. It states on the SRPS website it needs "engine repairs" but the website is very outdated and doesn't seem to have been updated in a good few years. Finally, what's the story with 37261? Afaict and using class37.com as a reference, it moved to Bo'ness in 2017 in dire need of an overhaul after getting saved from the cutter's torch. It hasn't really done anything since... it is on accommodation bogies now, but it has been sat behind the restoration shed on said bogies for as long as memory serves. Is it just in restoration hell or still waiting in the queue behind the 47 and 37403?

Thanks in advance!

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ajwffc said:

i think the 117 only going to Birkhill on running days is more a time ting to run something between the main service trains
27001 is privately owned with the owner moving it to the Caledonian Railway in July
37261 is owned by the Scottish 37 Group (same owners as 37025) so work should start on it again
20020 is behind at least the 47 in the queue for work of the SRPS owned locos
no idea about the 8F

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Tony2 said:

It’s on the Trainz download station:

<KUID2:283805:100216:1>

TS12 or higher version should be fine for running it, there is also a automated session also based on the 2012 diesel gala I attended.

Trainz Download Station

Trainz Download Station: Welcome to the Trainz Download Station. Here you will find a huge amount of additional content available for download for your enjoyment.

www.auran.com

View attachment 209855

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SW Rover said:

Site link below shows progress of locos at the B&KR and is regularly updated. Thanks to whoever takes the time to update the site which shows just how much work is involved.

https://realrail.smugmug.com/Trains

Last update for 37261 was in Sept 20 but if you look at what was in the loco when it arrived in July 15 then great progress had been made.

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GB&K Joint said:

The 8F is in the running shed at Bo’ness no work is being done on it as priorities lie elsewhere with “Morayshire” for example. The last report I saw suggested once the Class 47 leaves the engineering workshop, the plan would be the 8F takes its place and work can commence on stripping down the loco dependent on volunteer numbers and funds being available.

The Class 47 has its bogies removed for overhaul, it needs new tyres and this as far as I can recall is progressing subject to fundraising.

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InvernessTMD said:

Apologies for not getting back to anyone - my notifications seem to be broken and although the thread is watched it didn't bother telling me anyone had responded

This gallery is an absolute treasure trove - thank you!


Thank you for this. It would appear as if the 47's bogie refurb is now beginning in earnest, which is great news!
I have no idea if the statement holds any weight (as to be brutally honest he didn't really seem to know that much about the SRPS activities going on) but my tour guide during my guided tour said the funding for Morayshire had some sort of deadline, and that it was all hands on deck to try and push her out for the end of the year. Judging from the fact that most of her was scattered around the shop, not sure how likely that is... Thanks.

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GB&K Joint said:

The tour guide is correct, the funding has a deadline. The boiler work is outsourced to a third party, although additional work has been required above what was expected and has delayed completion, this has now progressed by and large towards testing. The workshop in Bo’ness is assembling the motion and lubrication systems as the locomotive frame is back on its wheels and you likely saw it over the pit having this work progressed. The tender is substantially complete, painted and ready to be reunited with the loco.

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InvernessTMD said:

Gotcha, thanks for the info. Very excited to see her in steam once more. It's always nice to see a Gresley design other than the mainstream ones, even more so when she's the only surviving member of her class!

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Scotrail344Lad said:

Indeed.
I have one or two questions:

1. Do they ever run goods trains at Bo'ness?
2. What is the current progress on the birkhill signalbox?

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InvernessTMD said:

For the goods trains, I've never personally seen one, but I know they have happened, at the 1:50 mark in this video

you can see 27001 hauling a goods consist that usually sits outside the wagon shed, near the signal box. The video is from 2011 though, so not sure if this is something that still ever happens. Not at the most recent steam or diesel galas, for sure.

The signal box at Birkhill is shaping up nicely, still quite a lot to do however. The guide said it had been finished, but the contractors were absolute cowboys that did such a bad job of the brickwork it had to be demolished and rebuilt from scratch! So it was torn down and is mostly back together, as of the last time I was there. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 25 Aug 2026 ==

As a side note - a YouTuber called ecksfilesbonyuk8 has just nuked their YouTube of a huge amount of Bo'ness and Kinneil Railway related videos. There were hundreds of videos with millions of views cumulatively, cataloguing history at the B&KR over the last 15 years. They're not deleting their entire channel on the basis of privacy or something like that as they have kept about 10-15 videos of various Bo'ness gala days.

This decision baffles me. A massive amount of history and generally entertaining videos have been lost. They must be a volunteer at the B&KR as there was a lot of behind the scenes stuff like the very first startup of 37025 in preservation and 37403's refurbishment. There were videos as recent as the May diesel gala that are now gone. I have absolutely no idea what would motivate someone to destroy history like this. If they're on here, I'd be interested as to why on earth they did this. I tried to reach them through YouTube comments, but I'm fairly sure mine was deleted.

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InvernessTMD said:

This decision baffles me. A massive amount of history and generally entertaining videos have been lost. They must be a volunteer at the B&KR as there was a lot of behind the scenes stuff like the very first startup of 37025 in preservation and 37403's refurbishment. There were videos as recent as the May diesel gala that are now gone. I have absolutely no idea what would motivate someone to destroy history like this. If they're on here, I'd be interested as to why on earth they did this. I tried to reach them through YouTube comments, but I'm fairly sure mine was deleted.

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ajwffc said:

Also don't call it a gala day as the locals will kill you it is the Fair day

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Scotrail344Lad said:

Indeed.
I have one or two questions:

1. Do they ever run goods trains at Bo'ness?
2. What is the current progress on the birkhill signalbox?

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ajwffc said:

1 i know they do sometimes at the steam galas but takes up limited paths that could be used for passenger trains
2. last pic i saw it looks almost structurally complete but the S&T stuff could be slow

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Scotrail344Lad said:

Thanks.

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