E12 - Railway Carriages

Did You Know?

Personal recollections of railways

Nov 17, 20225 min read

Heat and light

For trains in the worst of weathers. . . . . . . With the costs of fuel, lighting, heating, weird weather and global warming very much in...

Sep 29, 20224 min read

Sonning Cutting

A challenging two-mile long excavation. . . . . . . The original 1833 plan for the Great Western Railway (GWR) line from London to...

Sep 15, 20225 min read

F W Hawksworth

The Great Western Railway’s last Chief Mechanical Engineer. . . . . . . . Frederick William Hawksworth was born in Swindon, Wiltshire on...

Aug 4, 20224 min read

“Blazing Saddles”

Railways at one time encouraged tourist bicycle traffic. (With apologies to Mel Brooks and his 1974 film of the same name.) Bikes were...

Jul 13, 20224 min read

Feeling The Heat

Hot passengers, hot tracks and warm bananas. . . . . . . . Let’s look first at the well wrapped-up passengers of old. Engineer Archibald...

May 12, 20224 min read

Let there be (electric) light

From darkness through starlight, oil and gas to electricity for stations and rolling stock. . . . . . The Great Western Railway (GWR)...

Sep 18, 20213 min read

Are you sitting comfortably?

There’s been a lot of talk recently about standards of seating comfort in modern-day rolling stock. Passengers have complained about the...

Jun 23, 20205 min read

The FNRM’s support coach

These days, those observing steam operations on the national network will be familiar with the presence of the support coach, or private...

Mar 28, 20202 min read

Improvisation at a time of national (royal) emergency

Queen Victoria died on 22nd January 1901 at Osborne, on the Isle of Wight. On the day before the funeral, the coffin was taken by Royal...