Trains and railways: general interest

It is now some forty years since the term 'Second Generation EMU' entered rail industry parlance.

The Midland Main Line (MML) links London's St Pancras station to the East Midlands cities of Leicester, Derby and Nottingham.

The city of Peterborough stands about 75 miles north of London on the East Coast Main Line (ECML).

It is now more than thirty years since two words synonymous with Diesel Multiple Units became part of railway parlance - 'Pacers' and 'Sprinters'.

How many times have we heard the phrase 'they don't make them like they used to'?

Most people, rail enthusiasts or not, have heard of steam locomotive names such as Flying Scotsmanand Mallard.

Narrow gauge railways have long been a source of fascination for many.

When thinking of railways in Merseyside, some people will think of the extensive third-rail Merseyrail commuter system.

The railway in 1980 had not changed much since the 1960s.

The railway in 1980 had not changed much since the 1960s.

Railway stations were a prominent feature of most towns and villages in Britain until post-war modernisation and closures swept many away.

At one time, it seemed as though every canyon and pass leading into Colorado's high country was a path laid with 3-foot gauge narrow gauge railroad.

The most glamorous trains run by railway companies were the high-speed expresses, linking the major towns, cities and holiday destinations.

The ten-hour journey from the North East coast to almost the westernmost tip of England features ever-changing scenery with endless interest to railway enthusiast and casual traveller alike.

Founded by Charles Tayleur in 1830 as a factory to produce locomotives for the Liverpool & Manchester Railway, the Vulcan Foundry at Newton-le-Willows grew rapidly both in reputation and capacity.

In common with many teenage railway enthusiasts on Tyneside in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Colin Alexander clocked up hundreds of miles per day travelling on a variety of classic diesel trains, especially their beloved Deltics.

Approved in May 1833 at the same time as the London & Birmingham Railway, the Grand Junction Railway was intended to act as a link between the London & Birmingham and the Liverpool & Manchester Railway.

Authorised on 8 May 1833, the London & Birmingham Railway was one of Britain's first great trunk lines.

Great Railway Journeys: The Chiltern Line to Birmingham is a record of forty fascinating sites that can be seen from the window of a train travelling from Marylebone Station in London to Moor Street Station in Birmingham.

Railway enthusiasts living in London in the 1960s saw steam gradually disappearing from the capital's railways.

The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg are three separate European countries that have their own railway systems, with much integration between each other.

Driven by the sudden realisation that steam had all but disappeared on his 'local' GE line, David Christie set about initially recording the London termini, but was then spurred on to record as much as possible on the whole of BR before it was too late.

For many people, Doncaster will always be a railway town.

The fourth in a regional series of books examining the industrial locomotives and railways of England, Wales and Scotland, this volume covers the counties of Essex, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, Norfolk, Lincolnshire and East Nottinghamshire.

The city of Leeds in West Yorkshire was once one of the busiest railway centres in Britain and had the largest concentration of railway engine builders in the country.

This seventh volume in the series of regional books examining the industrial railways of England, Wales and Scotland looks at railways of the former Ridings of Yorkshire, a region that once boasted widespread coal mining activities, which strongly influenced the county's fortunes throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

'The most striking result produced by the completion of this Railway, is the sudden and marvellous change which has been effected in our ideas of time and space.

Continuing here with the North British Railway, Great North of Scotland Railway and the Cheshire Line Committee (CLC), Allen Jackson uses a range of previously unpublished photographs to evocatively demonstrate the story of signalling in the principal constituents of the LNER over the course of several volumes.

Over the course of several volumes, Allen Jackson uses an array of photographs to lavishly illustrate the story of signalling in the principal constituents of the LNER - continuing here with the second volume, which tells the story of the North Eastern Railway in Durham, Northumberland and Cumbria.

Over the course of several volumes, Allen Jackson uses an array of photographs to lavishly illustrate the story of signalling in the principal constituents of the LNER - continuing here with the first volume of the story of the North Eastern Railway in Yorkshire.

Over the course of several volumes, Allen Jackson offers an array of never Allen Jackson before published photographs to lavishly illustrate the story of signalling in the principal constituents of the LNER - continuing here with the Great Central Railway.

Over the course of several volumes, Allen Jackson uses an array of photographs to lavishly illustrate the story of signalling in the principal constituents of the LNER - continuing here with the Great Eastern Railway.

The Great Northern Railway out of King's Cross was always in the limelight with the 'Scotch Expresses' and it carried the baton to just north of Doncaster, whereupon the North Eastern Railway took over.

Take a look at East Anglia's rail map and it's obvious that one line dominates.

In late 2007 Freightliner placed its order for twenty Class 70 locomotives.

Anyone who has tried to watch freight moving on UK rails in the last few years will realise these are challenging times for the rail freight industry.

Almost the entire network of the former Midland & Great Northern Joint Railway system closed at the end of February 1959.

For over a hundred years there have been sleeper trains running to a variety of destinations around the British Isles.

When British Rail was formed in 1948, it inherited a large number of workshops that were used by the Big Four railway companies.

For Britain's railways, the 1970s was a time of contrasts, when gallows humour about British Rail sandwiches and delayed trains often overshadowed real achievement, like 'parkway' stations and high-speed travel.

The main route to Devon and Cornwall passes through Somerset, with routes from Bristol and Westbury converging at Cogload Junction - 5 miles east of Taunton.

Bounded by the counties of Hampshire, Somerset, Berkshire, Dorset, Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire, the county of Wiltshire has several significant main line railway routes passing through it: to the north is the Great Western Main Line from London Paddington to South Wales; the Berks & Hants route from Reading to Westbury runs through the heart of the county, and westwards to Taunton; and to the south of the county the former London & South Western Railway route runs from London Waterloo to Exeter, while the cross-country route from Southampton to Bath cuts across the county from the south-east to the north-west.

Featuring an array of previously unpublished images, Royston Morris documents the fascinating world of the vehicles and equipment that keep the nation's railways on track and on time.

Dorset - where the South Coast meets the West Country.

As in many countries in the 1970s, South Africa's railways were making the change over from steam to diesel and electric traction at an ever-increasing pace.

The Class 156 (Super Sprinter) is a Diesel Multiple Unit (DMU) ordered by British Rail and built between 1987 and 1989 by Metro-Cammell to replace the aging first-generation 'Heritage' DMUs.

During the 1970s steam locomotives still played a big part in the operation of train services on the Deutsche Reichsbahn in the German Democratic Republic.

The years 1966 and 1967 saw many steam enthusiasts heading north to photograph and record the last steam-worked trains on the Midland Region of British Rail.

For almost as long as there have been railways, there has been 'departmental' rolling stock.

The Pennine ridge - 'England's backbone' - has provided a dramatic backdrop to the steam locomotive for nearly 180 years.