Seventy years ago today a world land speed record was set that has never been broken... on July 3, 1938 LNER Class A4 4468 Mallard reached the giddy speed of 126mph.
posted on Jul 3, 2008 - View this thread

Dead Road - Museum of Communism in the Open. "It was one of the most ambitious projects of the Stalin era, known as the 'railway of bones'. At least 10 people a day died during the four years of its construction [actually 1947-1953], but unlike most of Uncle Joe's grand designs it was never completed and now sits unfinished in the tundra, an icy road to nowhere." The transpolar railway was built by labour camps^ 501 and 503 and construction was stopped after the amnesty following Stalin's death in 1953; 800km, about half, was built. Some sections are currently in operation, but much is abandoned: depot and locomotives in Dolgoe, Dolgoe itself, labour camps, more spectacular decay. (Previously: Norilsk, which was supposed to see an extension of the line.)
posted on Aug 27, 2007 - View this thread

Hisakyu's Railway Guide
posted on Dec 7, 2006 - View this thread

London to Brighton in Two Minutes (2006) [HI Apple Quicktime, LO Adobe Flash] preceeded by London to Brighton in Three-and-a-Half Minutes (1983) [RealMedia, context] preceeded by London to Brighton in Four Minutes (1953) [RealMedia, context]
posted on Oct 1, 2006 - View this thread

One small german army and a train. (large pageload of photographs). Also: a flash slideshow of the same army (parent site) [via]
posted on Aug 22, 2006 - View this thread

Music history rendered on a London Tube Map They say: "Could we chart the branches and connections of 100 years of music using the London Underground map? Dorian Lynskey explains how a box of coloured crayons and lot of swearing helped." I say: Look also at the comments in the accompanying thread, which features trolling, snarkiness and repetition, beginning with "Why did you do this? What is the point? Wouldn't you have been better off doing something else? Sometimes you media people really worry me." The Guardian are introducing commenter registration on their new blog.
posted on Feb 12, 2006 - View this thread

The London Necropolis Railway During the first half of the 19th century, London's population more than doubled and the number of London corpses requiring disposal was growing almost as fast. Cemetery space in the city had failed to keep pace with this growth, and so the vast new Brookwood Cemetery - the London Necropolis - was built in Surrey. Brookwood was the largest burial ground in the world when it was opened in 1854 by the London Necropolis & National Mausoleum Company. To get there, the deceased and their mourners - segregated by class - could catch a train from Westminster. The Necropolis Railway survived until World War 2, when it was heavily damaged. The railway was subsequently closed as motorised hearses became more popular. See also: Also: a six part Fortean Times article extracted from Google's cache [1 2 3 4 5 6]
posted on Aug 1, 2005 - View this thread

The Brighton Daddy Longlegs Railway ran offshore along the beach at Brighton, UK, at the turn of the 20th century. Designed by Magnus Volk, it ran on 24 feet high stilts, over the sea, and required a trained sea captain to operate it. For a few years, it was quite the tourist attraction. The rest of Volk's Electric Railway is still in operation.
posted on Mar 4, 2005 - View this thread

Photographs of London Underground Stations Taken on black and white film, then coloured in photoshop. A nice example.
posted on Jan 25, 2005 - View this thread

A golden buckle on the steel girdle of Russia : Completed in 1905 and considered to be among the major masterpieces of Russian engineering, the Circum-Baikal Railway offers Trans-Siberian Rail passengers breathtaking views of the world's oldest lake and its rugged surroundings. Over only 72 kilometers, the railway's designers had to construct 200 bridges and viaducts and 33 tunnels to navigate the terrain.
posted on Jan 19, 2005 - View this thread

Citycat's Railway Web Site.
posted on Jun 15, 2004 - View this thread

Serviceton is a small railway town on the border of South Australia and Victoria, and was once a means for traders to escape taxes when travelling between the colonies, due to errors made when surveying the state borders. No train has stopped here since 1986, and now only a handful of people remain in the town, a sad downfall that Tom Waits has immortalized in song. But abandoned railway stations, closed as populations decline or trade routes change, exist the world over, in the city and in the country, and yes, even in France. They look like great places to explore.
posted on Mar 19, 2003 - View this thread