Author Archives: Simon Lomax

We are pleased to confirm that we will re-open to the public from Saturday 17th April. We will be running a steam loco on that day to mark the start of the season. We will then be running on Saturdays plus bank holiday weekends. Trains run from 1130 to 4pm; full details are at www.avlr.org.uk. […]

With a following wind, this will be the last of the Life & Times posts, and we’ll be able to get back to posting about what is actually happening at Apedale. But this post was 75% written, and it seemed a shame to waste it! Fleet nos. 1 and 2 are 1963 built Wingrove and […]

Sadly, we cannot re-open to the public until April 17th – a real shame, as the Easter weekend weather has been unseasonally sunny thus far. However, we have been able to welcome back onto site many of our volunteers, and we have started the process of re-awakening the railway from its enforced stillness. This has […]

Unlike many of the fleet, we have unusually good photo coverage of this loco in industry, with images taken at four previous locations. It was ordered in 1955 by the Great Wakering Brick Co Ltd on 6 June 1955 and was dispatched on the 1st of November of the same year (try doing that in […]

No.42 is a loco where its MRT fleet number co-incides, by a non-coincidence, with the running number it bore in industry. No.42 is Motor Rail 7710, one of the large 32/42hp locos fitted with a Dormal 2DL diesel engine. It was new to Sir Robert McAlpine, Pant Farm gravel pits, Wrexham, but moved during the […]

A little while ago, a L&T feature looked at Motor Rail 1320, the “Block of Flats” as it unaffectionately referred to. This time, we will look at its cousin, Motor Rail 1369. Both are 40HP Simplex locos, built for the War Department Light Railways (WDLR) during the First World War. Unlike MR1320, MR1369 is largely […]

We are pleased to announce that we are planning to open to the public for the 2021 season on Saturday April 17th. Trains will run from 1130 to 1600 at frequent intervals, and fares have been frozen at 2020 levels. As in 2020, we will run our “COVID-secure” train service. This means that we only […]

Loco no.32 is a Lister RM2X, number 52885 of 1962; this is one of the very late Listers, which were branded as Lister Blackstones, and had an improved bodywork. The bar for “improved” is quite low – most earlier locos had (at best) a roof on four corner posts. No.32 was delivered new to George […]

This is a fairly late-build loco to use a petrol engine – the use of the Dorman diesel was more common by this time. It suffered an identity crisis from the word go; the records tell us that it was actually built as loco no.5046, but then a swap took place between the identities of […]

One of the unsung heroes of the MRT fleet – we present fleet no.7, Motor Rail 8663 of 1941 “The Wade”. The loco was ordered by the War Office and was ex-works from Bedford on 5 September 1941. It appears that it was stored by the War Office until the 1970s, when it was sold […]