Buy an individual print copy of January 2024 Newsrail here

For January, we have yet another big 40-page edition jam-packed with great reading.

This month’s cover photo, by Scott Gould, introduces our first feature, which marks the end of locomotive-hauled services to Bacchus Marsh. Mark Cauchi has put together an article, and Mark and Scott have both provided some great photos.

Our main feature article is a large-scale photo essay and memoir by Andrew Blair, John Thompson and John Hearsch on the rail tours of the late Tom Murray. Tom, as a schoolboy during the 1950s, reformed the Scotch College model railway club into a railfan organisation that arranged tours to various far-flung parts of the VR network, and he became widely known as “Tom Train”. Many of the locations visited by Tom’s tours can no longer be reached by rail, indeed, Andrew Blair’s photos of the Cudgewa Line tour record locations such as Old Tallangatta which today lie beneath the waters of Lake Hume. Each of the authors has provided photos from their own collection, and there are some absolutely stunning images in the collection!

Our Tourist and heritage rail column continues to check in on interesting restoration projects currently underway. This month we’re back to Bellarine Railway for an update on the restoration of the Australian Standard Garratt locomotive and Car 19. The Bellarine Railway workshop will open to the public on the weekend of 6 and 7 February 2024.

Our other regular sections are there:

• General works
• Operations and sightings
• Tramways
• PTV service quality
• Where is it?
• Taildisc