Some recent pictures that I took

 Because why not. Pictures bring visitors.

200 years of the railway

Today marks 200 years since the opening of the Stockton & Darlington Railway, the first modern railway. The impact of that line was truly world-changing for good - and also ill. It made global commerce truly possible - and also imperialism. It also allowed people greater mobility and sped up communication, making political organisation far easier.

Appropriately enough, I am writing this on a train, travelling on Brunel's Great Western Railway from Paddington to Reading.

While standing in the vestibule. With the catering not open because the train is full. A 5-car IET is no replacement for a HST in terms of capacity. 

Great British Railways is heading down the tracks; Greater Anglia transfers over on 12 October.

Whether that will actually improve services remains to be seen. One problem with public railways is that they tend to be rather dependent on the whim of government and its political interest.

This is not a full defence of privatisation; the British franchise version was far too fragmented. At least it gave variety in terms of paint jobs. Or rather vinyls.

Anyway, here's to another 200 years. Perhaps I will live to see railways on Mars. Dust on the line anyone?

The Greatest Gathering - or that's a lot of trains

As you may already know, 2025 marks the 200th anniversary of the opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, the first public railway that used steam engines. As a result, a large number of events are taking place around the country to mark what is called "Railway 200".

One of the highlights of this anniversary year, clearly marked as such from when it was first advertised, was The Greatest Gathering, taking place at the Alstom train works in Derby from 1 to 3 August.

The coat of arms of the city of Derby

It most definitely lived up to the name, with the number of items of rolling stock going into three figures. I was there from around 11.30am to just before closing time and I still didn't get to see anything.

Many others will have covered this in their own articles, so I will just show some of my pictures with some of my own comments.

There was a heritage bus service running to the station with vintage vehicles from around the country, but I didn't get this.

These two were from The Cab Yard, a museum under development near Swansea. The 442 cab in the left is a cab simulator, but this required booking and was full up for the day.

Locomotive present ranged from 1825's Locomotion No.1 to...

The brand new Class 93 from Stadler, a tri-mode locomotive (25kV overhead, diesel engine, battery)

Making its "debut" here - the Watercress Line's recently acquired Class 150, in a Regional Railways vinyl livery. This is the first of the "Sprinter" family to enter preservation and probably not the last.

HST power cars were rather prevalent - the yard near Derby station also had a bunch of them.

There's a lot more that I could share. It was definitely a highly memorable day and a testament to the skill of everyone involved that it came off.

c2c gets nationalised

One of East London's railway operators, c2c (no official definition of that) is being brought back into public ownership as of Sunday 20 July.

I have to say it has been one of the better private operators. Frequent services, pleasant trains and an early adopter of Oyster/contactless; well it had to be due to sharing three stations with London Underground.

I don't know how quickly things will change visually; for one thing the Great British Railways legislation has yet to be introduced.

Does sticking a new vinyl on something make things automatically better? I doubt it. Public organisations can muck up just as much as private ones. Especially rail operators. 

But we shall see. I wonder if we'll get a new livery any time soon?