Rail Projects

For two decades this rugged design was the mainstay of express trains out of St Pancras to the north of England. Never a star performer in the way the Deltic was, lacking the style of a ‘Western’ diesel hydraulic. […]

With around 2200hp available and weighing less than 80 tons, these locomotives, seemed to prove the point about the superior power to weight ratio of the diesel hydraulic over the diesel electric. The 2000hp Class 40 diesel electric weighed in at 133 tons. But the Western Region needed more power and this was to lead to the development of the ‘Westerns’.
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Ian Nicholls Question: What does the Lamborghini Miura have in common with the British Rail Class 55 Deltic diesel locomotive? Answer: They both appeared in the main title sequence of a classic […]

Ian Nicholls One of the most fondly remembered British Rail diesel locomotives was the English Electric Type 4, later christened Class 40. Nicknamed ‘Whistlers’ by rail enthusiasts, due to their distinctive […]

The Class 37 has had an even longer career than the Brush Class 47, but because it was more of a mixed traffic locomotive, and less powerful, it never hauled the crack expresses. The locomotive was a product of the English Electric company, which in the 1950s was riding high. During World War II, English Electric had built Handley Page Halifax bombers under licence at their Warton plant. […]

I get the impression that editor Keith and Mike Humble are big HST/Inter City 125 fans. Perhaps they had the Hornby model as kids?
But I think the Brush Type 4 or Class 47 is a more remarkable locomotive. Introduced in 1962, some 30 are still in service in 2015, an amazing 53 years. The HST has only put in a mere 39 years service! […]

Some of our previous BL/BR-themed content went down rather well in the past, so Mike Humble wiggles a glass to the only serious threat to the passenger car in the 1970s and […]

Mike Humble While ploughing through my extensive archive of all things bus and coach just now, I was staggered to notice that, 20 years ago this month, in July 1993 […]

Mike Humble Sometimes it’s good to take a breather from the crazy world of cars. This month marks the 75th Anniversary of the record breaking speed run of Sir Nigel […]

Mike Humble Well, as I am sure many of you will know, our very own British Leyland and – latterly – Leyland Bus Limited, were once heavily involved in rail […]

Mike Humble The East Coast Main Line (ECML) has been for many years, England ’s rail gateway to the North starting from London Kings Cross to Edinburgh some 392.7 miles […]

Twenty twelve is of course our Jubilee and Olympic year, and here at AROnline we celebrate our own transport legends in the first of this new short series that pay […]

It’s 20 years since Volvo delivered three killer blows to our motoring industry: 1992 saw the end of Leyland Lynx and Tiger production with total closure being announced for the […]

Another development of the Leyland/British Rail partnership was the Rail bus. This time it all came to fruition for BL in a period when the bus market was dying. But this time, it got […]

Many people are unaware that some British Leyland products ran on the rails as well as the roads. AROnline looks at the Advanced Passenger Train (APT-E), which was BL’s first […]