FREIGHTMASTER was the brainchild of Mark Rawlinson, who was bornin the seaside town of Morecambe and initially worked in the booking office at Lancaster railway station, where his interest in timetables was ignited.
He then moved close to Hest Bank with his garden backing onto the West Coast Main Line where it skirts Morecambe Bay. At the time, he was producing videos for a retail customer, more of a hobby than anything resembling a business. In fact, the nearest thing to resembling Freightmaster was a simple timetable he compiled (out of pure interest) of the passing times of freight traffic on this stretch of the WCML between Carnforth and Preston.
A friend was impressed with the detail and asked Mark if he could produce a few more timetable locations on a request basis. As a result, Mark cobbled together a small number of locations and printed them off in a card jacket – a very simple affair, home produced, with no idea of where this basic idea would lead.
FROM SMALL ACORNS
I had been away from the railway scene for about five years when, by chance, I happened to be at Milford Junction observing a constant stream of Class 56s working Merry-Go-Round coal trains between Gascoigne Wood Mine and the Aire Valley power stations.
As the day panned out, however, it was not the trains that fascinated me but a small booklet to which other enthusiasts were constantly referring. Entitled Freightmaster, this little booklet would ultimately change the working life for Mark and myself for the next 25 years; I was, quite simply, in the right place, at the right time.
Denne historien er fra January 2021-utgaven av Rail Express.
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Denne historien er fra January 2021-utgaven av Rail Express.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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LNER puts remaining ‘91s' into warm store
The ongoing pandemic restrictions and major engineering works have resulted in the complete withdrawal of the last remaining ‘Electras’ from passenger service, although the plan is to resurrect them in the summer.
Mk.1 Restaurant-Buffet (RBR) cars
A SURPRISING number of Mk.1catering cars have survived to see service on the privatised railway, in private operator and charter trains. They may turn up on anything from an enthusiast special to higher-end dining trains and have been formed in trains as prestigious as the locomotive-hauledBlue Pullman’ set, the ‘Great Britain’ tours operated by West Coast Railways and the ‘Northern Belle’ tour train.
Powerscene
Our authoritative class-by-class review of newsworthy locomotive workings.
End for Freightliner Class 86/6s
The company’s Class 86/6 fleet down to just two examples as seven locos are stored.
Service reductions as Covid cases increase
An increase in Covid-19 cases in early January saw the governments in Ireland and Northern Ireland impose stricter lockdown measures that impacted on public transport.
East West Rail funding go-ahead
Although it was expected, £760 million of funding has now been confirmed to build the Western Section of the East West Railway scheme.
Travellers-Fare with Hornby's Mk.1 Restaurant-Buffet car
Hornby expands its range of retooled ‘OO’ gauge Mk.1 coaches with a brand new tooling for the Diagram 24 Restaurant-Buffet car (RB) and the Diagram 33 refurbished version (RBR). It models the vehicles in both original form, finished in BR maroon and Southern Region green, together with the RBR refurbished coaches. They remained in frontline service well into the 1990s, including Cross-Country workings.
Class 92 revolution
Despite its complex shape and high detail ratio compared to other modern six-axle locomotives, Revolution Trains chose the Class 92 to be its first 'N' gauge locomotive model.
Bottling it!
A dig into the Rail Express archive has revealed some rarely-seen photographs of the former rail-connected Express Dairy bottling plant in South West London, which today is the site of a large mosque.
1990s ‘N' gauge Class 950
Work on the ‘N’ gauge Class 950 Track Recording Unit project, a conversion based on a standard Graham Farish Class 150/1 model, is concluded by finishing the model in 1990s condition.
