Roger Farnworth Railways

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Friends of the West Highland Lines
Friends of The West Highland Lines Journal – ‘West Highland News Plus’

The featured image for this article shows the Jacobite arriving at Mallaig Railway Station, © Mary & Angus Hogg and licensed for reuse under a Creative Commons licence (CC BY-SA 2.0). [18]

In the bookshop at Wemyss Bay Railway Station in May 2026, I picked up the Spring 2026 issue of West Highland News Plus which is the magazine of the friends of The West Highland Lines. It reminded me that 2026 is the 125th anniversary of the opening of the Mallaig Extension on 1st April 1901.

http://rogerfarnworth.com/2026/06/26/fri...news-plus/

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RE: Roger Farnworth Railways
The Guardian Lifestyle Magazine - 23rd May 2926 again. ...

Part 6 - Over Land & Sea: Magical Views and Sea-Hugging Routes on Europe’s Best Coastal Train Lines – Part B – Spain and Italy

The featured image for this article comes from the FEVE lines of Northern Spain. It shows a typical DMU in use on the FEVE network, together with a number of single-car units, these vehicles provide services across the network, © Elfo del Bosque and licensed for reuse under a Creative Commons licence (CC BY-SA 3.0). [151]

The travel section of the Saturday Guardian Magazine on 23rd May 2023 included a few pages about train journeys in Europe (pages 72 to 77). This is the sixth part of a look at those pages. …

Nicky Gardner is lead author of Europe by Rail: The Definitive Guide (Hidden Europe, £21.99). The 19th edition of the book was published on 22nd June 2026. To order a copy for £19.79 go to guardianbookshop. com. Delivery charges may apply!

This second part of a look at the coastal routes highlighted by Nicky Gardner focusses on two railways – one in Spain and the other in Italy.

http://rogerfarnworth.com/2026/06/28/the...and-italy/

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The Campbeltown and Machrihanish Light Railway
The featured image for this article shows ‘Argyll’ (a Barclay built 0-6-2T) taking its train Southeast out of Campbeltown before turning Southwest to run round the South side of the town. This image was shared on the Machrihanish Online Facebook Page on 26th July 2023. © Public Domain. [22]

The Campbeltown and Machrihanish Light Railway was a 6-mile, 2 ft 3 in (686 mm) narrow-gauge railway in Kintyre, Scotland, operating between 1906 and 1934. It ran from Campbeltown’s New Quay to Machrihanish, primarily serving coal traffic while also transporting tourists and locals across the peninsula.

It replaced an earlier industrial tramway which was built in 1876 and used by the Argyll Coal and Canal Company, which before this had replaced a canal.

In 1876, the line followed the line of the old canal that used to be used to transport coal.

In 1905/6 the curves were improved and the steeper gradients eased.

http://rogerfarnworth.com/2026/07/01/the...t-railway/

[rogerfarnworth]

RE: Roger Farnworth Railways
The Thinking About Light Railways before 1896 (and the 1896 Act of Parliament in the UK).

The featured image for this article shows a brand new standard-gauge locomotive – 0-6-4T Mersey Railway No. 1 ‘The Major’. It had not yet received its nameplates when it posed in ‘works grey’ at the Beyer, Peacock works at Manchester in 1885. The locomotive served on the Mersey Railway until that line decided on electrification. Four engines from the line, including ‘The Major’ found employment in Australia, on John Brown’s private light railway – the Richmond Vale Railway in New South Wales. The image comes from “Light Railways – Australia’s Magazine Industrial and Narrow Gauge Railways.” It is included here as an example of a standard gauge locomotive employed on an industrial line recognised as a light railway by ‘The Light Railway Research Society of Australia’. ... Not all ‘Light railways’ were narrow gauge, nor were their locomotives small 0-4-0T or 0-6-0T locomotives. [7]

W.J.K. Davies tells us that in the 1870s, it became apparent both in the UK and other countries that “many districts, while they would benefit immensely from the facilities afforded by a railway, just could not maintain a line built and operated to main line standards. And so, gradually, during the 1870’s and 1880’s, the concept of the light railway was formulated; a sub-standard means of bringing the advantages of rail transport into rural districts with the deliberate intention of opening them up and improving them. It must be made clear that this concept was different both from the idea of a standard gauge branch line which, although single track, was built and equipped in such things as signalling, stock and staffing to the same standards as the main lines, and from those narrow gauge lines already in existence which had been constructed in difficult country for a specialized purpose, normally the carriage of minerals; the best example of which was the Ffestiniog Railway, in Wales. These lines were not light railways in the true sense of the term.” [1: p24]

http://rogerfarnworth.com/2026/07/06/the...in-the-uk/