Rail Books

Class 56s and 58s Designed specifically for heavy freight operations in the UK, British Rail’s Class 56 was introduced in 1976–84. The first 30 of ...

Class 57s The Class 57 diesel locomotive was an outgrowth of the tremendously successful and iconic Class 47. Rebuilt from redundant Class 47s by B...

Heritage DMUs: The Final Years At the beginning of the privatisation era of Britain’s railways, there was a pause in new rolling stock deliveries. ...

Class 31s Perhaps overshadowed by more ‘exotic’ locomotives, the Class 31s played a significant part in British Railways’ Modernisation Plan. Inten...

Electrostar: Capital Commuter At the turn of the millennium, a large percentage of the passenger services around London and the south-east were ope...

Class 68s In 2009, Direct Rail Services (DRS) ordered a small fleet of locos designed to remain in service until at least 2036 to futureproof its c...

British Rail Shunters: The Final Years By the beginning of the 1990s, the variety that once characterised British Rail’s (BR) shunter fleet had all...

Class 73s Built in the 1960s, the Class 73s were primarily used on the Southern Region, owing to their ability to operate from either a diesel engi...

British Rail Shunters: From Corporate Blue to Sectorisation The role of British Rail’s (BR) diesel shunters was increasingly threatened by the la...

Class 33s In 1960, the Birmingham Railway Carriage and Wagon Company built a class of 98 locomotives, later to be designated Class 33s. They were c...

Class 159s: 30 Years’ Service By the late 1980s, the Class 50 and Class 47 locomotives working Network SouthEast’s West of England line from London...

Class 47s: Jack Of All Trades In 1962, construction of the first Class 47 began – the first of many. These ubiquitous locomotives were very popular...

Brush Type 4 to Class 47s – The First 20 Years It is 60 years since the first Class 47, No D1500, entered service with British Railways (BR). For m...

East Coast Main Line Locomotive Haulage The East Coast Main Line (ECML) runs from London King’s Cross to Edinburgh Waverley, with branches to Leeds...

Class 47s: Inverness to Newquay 1986–87 In the mid-1980s, the winds of change were blowing through British Rail and often not for the good; the pac...

Class 50s During the mid-1960s, British Rail (BR) was looking to introduce a high-powered diesel locomotive to improve services on the West Coast M...

Class 66: 3/4/7/8 In the late 1990s, English, Welsh and Scottish Railway (EWS) had led the way with its Class 66s. As other operators followed suit...

Class 66/0 In the late 1990s, most of the current locomotives in use on the national network were becoming very tired and evermore unreliable. It w...

HSTs: Around Britain: From 1990 to the Present Day For almost 50 years, High Speed Trains (HSTs) have been the mainstay for express services for ma...

Class 66: 5/6/9 In the late 1990s, English, Welsh & Scottish Railway (EWS) was having great success with its Class 66s, and Freightliner, which...

Grand Central Grand Central is an innovative and pioneering railway open-access operator with a relatively short, but varied history. Beginning ope...

Britain’s Preserved Railways The preserved heritage museum railways of Britain are thriving. There is nostalgia for the steam locomotives of a bygo...

Class 67s In the late 1990s, English, Welsh & Scottish Railway (EWS) ordered a large fleet of 250 Class 66 locomotives to replace a variety of ...

Class 59s In the mid-1980s, one of British Rail’s major customers of heavy block trains, Foster Yeoman, suggested the unusual arrangement of runnin...