Our February edition features a photo of R711 in brown primer as the locomotive receives its first complete repaint in 19 years. This project by our friends at Steamrail Victoria is one of the many projects that the four rail heritage groups at Newport are currently progressing, and the upcoming Newport Workshops Open Days running from 7 to 9 March offers railfans a once-in-only-two-years opportunity to visit the workshops and see the amazing work of these groups first hand. We have a guide to the event, detailing many of the attractions already confirmed for 2026.

Our News page leads with the news of the likely destruction of almost all of the historic timber bridges along the former Cudgewa Line between Bullioh and Shelley, including the spectacular 21-metre high heritage-listed Darbyshire No.2 bridge, as a result of the Walwa bushfire that rapidly spread on 9 January. Our thoughts are with the dedicated volunteers who over the last 25 years developed the rail trail that allowed rail fans and the public in general to visit and in some cases travel over these historic structures.

Our feature article is the second part of our series on the Box Hill Brickworks Siding. The term ‘siding’ doesn’t seem to do justice to what was a privately run railway that branched off the yard at Box Hill Station and continued south to the brickworks located near the corner of Elgar and Canterbury Roads. Mark’s article covers the operations of this railway during the 1920s through to its closure in the late 1930s, including the unique four-wheeled locomotive ‘Cleis’ that worked the siding. In the 1960s and 70s, this locomotive was an attraction for railfans visiting the gypsum sidings at Nowingi where the locomotive sat abandoned after its new owners discovered it routinely consumed 44 gallons (200 litres) of petrol to travel just 16 miles (26 km)! Mark’s article is authoritative, thoroughly researched, and extensively illustrated with photos, maps and plans.

For our tourist and heritage rail column, we catch up with Stuart Harrod, a fitter who has been busily working on K160’s tender. Stuart, whose experience includes working at heritage railways in the USA, UK and Denmark, was fascinated by the methods of construction evident in K160’s tender, which was originally built at a time when VR had recently embraced welding over riveting as its preferred method of construction.  Stuart shares his observations with us, along with photos that detail the extensive work undertaken in recent months.

Also in this edition are details of G Class tram testing on the Yarra Trams network, disruptions to interstate rail services brought by the derailment at Newport of train 5BM9, details of the final report from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau into the 2022 Goornong level crossing crash, and a couple of quite fascinating reader responses to our recent stories on a runaway rail trolley at Traralgon and our photo feature on Spencer Street Station in 1961.

And our usual other columns are there: