Phil's photos with the keyword: Rail

Eurostar is a high-speed railway service connecting London with Paris and Brussels. All it's trains traverse the Channel Tunnel between the United Kingdom and France. The London terminus is St Pancras International with the other British calling points being Ebbsfleet International and Ashford International in Kent. Calling points in France are Calais-Fréthun and Lille-Europe, with trains to Paris terminating at Gare du Nord. Trains to Belgium terminate at Midi / Zuid station in Brussels. In addition there are limited services from London to Disneyland Paris at Marne-la-Vallée – Chessy, services to southern France as of 1 May 2015 and seasonal services to the Alps in winter. The service is operated by eighteen-coach trains which run at up to 300 kph (186 mph) on a network of high-speed lines. The French and Belgian parts of the network are shared with Paris–Brussels Thalys services and also with TGV trains. In the United Kingdom the two-stage Channel Tunnel Rail Link project was completed on 14 November 2007 and renamed High Speed 1 when the London terminus of Eurostar transferred from Waterloo International to St Pancras International. (Wikipedia).

This huge engine was built in 1935 at the Vulcan Foundry in Newton-Le-Willows, Lancashire, England and was designed by Colonel Kenneth Cantile (a British railway advisor to the Chinese government) for passenger and freight service on the Chinese railway network. The engine is 28.3 metres (93 feet) long and weighs 195 tonnes. It carries 12.2 tonnes of coal and 24,410 litres (6469 UK gallons) of water and is capable of pulling a load of 609 tonnes at a speed of up to 50 mph on level ground. Each of the 8 main driving wheels is almost 1.8 metres (approx. 6 feet) in diameter. During the Second World War it was captured and used by the Imperial Japanese army. After the war it was used again on the Chinese rail network until 1981, when it was donated to the people of Britain as a gift from the people of China and was put on static display at the National Railway Museum in York. Camera: Nikon D90. Processed with Nikon Capture NX2.

The Livingston Thompson, a "Double Fairlie" 0-4-4-0T type locomotive (built in 1885 and operated on the Ffestiniog Railway), now restored as a static display at the National Railway Museum in York. The Ffestiniog Railway (Welsh: Rheilffordd Ffestiniog) is a 23.5 inches wide (597 mm) narrow gauge heritage railway located in Gwynedd, Wales. It is a major tourist attraction located mainly within the Snowdonia National Park. The railway is roughly 13 miles (21 km) long and runs from the harbour at Porthmadog to the slate-mining town of Blaenau Ffestiniog, travelling through forested and mountainous scenery. The line is single track throughout with four intermediate passing places. The narrow gauge track allows trains to inter-work through to the Welsh Highland Railway of 1922 (operated by the Ffestiniog). The first mile of the line out of Porthmadog runs atop an embankment locally called "the Cob", which is the dyke of the Traeth Mawr "polder". The railway company is properly known as the "Festiniog Railway Company" and this obsolete but contemporary spelling is the official title of the company as defined by the Act (2 William IV cap.xlviii) that created the railway. It is the oldest surviving railway company in the world (although not the oldest still working - a record which goes to the Middleton Railway), having been founded by the Act of Parliament on 23 May 1832 with capital mostly raised in Dublin by Henry Archer, the company's first secretary and managing director. Most British railways were amalgamated into four large groups in 1921 and then into British Railways in 1948 but the Festiniog Railway Company, in common with most narrow gauge railways, remained independent. (Wikipedia). Camera Nikon D90. Processed with Nikon Capture NX2. More information & photos here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ffestiniog_Railway_rolling_stock

This single-cylinder, steam-powered static winding engine was originally used on the Leicester and Swannington Railway, near the city of Leicester, UK. The low power of contemporary steam engines meant that where the gradient was steepest, locomotive haulage gave way to other means. As was common in those days, there were two inclines on the line: one at Bagworth, rising at 1 in 29 towards Swannington and worked by gravity; and a much steeper though shorter one at the Swannington end, descending at 1 in 17 and worked by a stationary engine . The latter was built by the Horsely Coal and Iron Company, and was equipped with a very early example of a piston valve. The pits at the Swannington end were worked out by as early as 1875, but the incline found a new lease of life lowering wagons of coal to a new pumping station at the foot that kept the old workings clear of water, so preventing flooding in the newer mines nearby. The incline closed in 1948 when electric pumps were installed in the pumping station, but the winding engine was dismantled and is now at the National Railway Museum at York. The site of the incline now belongs to the Swannington Heritage Trust. (Wikipedia).

Old engine parked outside the Winfields store in Haslingden, Rossendale, UK.