Tag Archives: Railways

Culture, History, Homes, Magazines, Travel

COUNTRY LIFE MAGAZINE – JANUARY 7, 2026

January 6, 2026 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

COUNTRY LIFE MAGAZINE: The latest issue features ‘Portmeirion’ – A vision of the picturesque.

A peculiar genius

Kathryn Ferry salutes the fore-sight of Clough Williams-Ellis a century on from the opening of his Picturesque confection at Portmeirion in Gwynedd

Spreads from Country Life January 7, 2025

Pour show

The winter ritual of wassailing is an ancient plea for abundant apple harvests that is indulged in to this day, finds Laura Parker

Shoot for the stars

Relive the most memorable moments of the past 100 years with 22 incredible images chosen by Lucy Ford, Emily Anderson and Carla Passino

London Life

Will Hosie considers how water defines and divides Londoners and ponders the possible renewal of a rivalry between the National Gallery and Tate Modern, plus our writers have all you need to know this month

In the garden

Grow ground nuts, says Mark Diacono, and enjoy tubers with a taste of nutty new potatoes

Helen Allen’s favourite painting

The executive director of the US Winter Show picks an intriguing portrait sporting a quizzical look

Country-house treasure

John Goodall is captivated by the fighting cats in a 17th-century mosaic above the Long Library fireplace at Holkham Hall, Norfolk

The legacy: Agatha Christie

Kate Green acclaims murder-mystery-writing maestro Agatha Christie, whose 66 detective novels have sold more than two billion copies worldwide

Playing your cards right

Matthew Dennison is holding all the aces as he traces the history of playing cards right back to 9th-century China

The good stuff

Glide seamlessly into 2026 with Amie Elizabeth White’s stylish selections for the ski slopes

Interiors

Giles Kime welcomes the world of possibilities offered by free-standing kitchens and Arabella Youens admires the boot room of a house in Gloucestershire

Shining a light on the past

Carl Linnaeus’s glorious 18th-century herbarium is showcased in a new collection of exquisite photographs by Lena Granefel, discovers Christopher Stocks

Travel

Pamela Goodman takes in peerless Himalayan panoramas from a remote luxury lodge in India and, in her monthly column, wonders what the Normans did for us

Arts & antiques

Actor and poet Leigh Lawson tells Carla Passino why he will never part with memorabilia dedicated to music-hall queen Marie Lloyd, his great-aunt

Scale model

Abundant mackerel was once greeted with garlands thrown into the sea. David Profumo profiles Scomber scombrus

Culture, History, Homes, Magazines, Travel

COUNTRY LIFE MAGAZINE – DECEMBER 31, 2025

December 31, 2025 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Country Life December 31, 2025 | Country Life

COUNTRY LIFE MAGAZINE: The latest issue features ‘Britain in 50 Treasures’ – The monuments that make the nation.

Dangerous libations

How do you cope with a Kung-Fu Panda? What do you do when the Temple of Doom strikes? Olly Smith reveals how to deal with hurricane-force hangovers

Magazine spread from Country Life 31 December 2025

Interiors

Is design destined to be more Moorish or will Egyptomania rule? Country Life predicts the shape of things to come in 2026 and Giles Kime says painted furniture is key to a laidback look

Jacu Strauss’s favourite painting

The creative director of the Lore Group chooses an intriguing unfinished 1830s painting that is still confounding art experts almost 200 years on

Learn it by art

The story of the British Isles is peppered with ancient artefacts and much-loved monuments. Charlotte Mullins surveys the centuries through 50 treasures, from the Ice Age caves of Derbyshire’s Creswell Crags to Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle at Greenwich in London

Are you ready to order?

Artfully designed menus have long been a tasty proposition for collectors, aided by designs from leading artistic lights such as Ravilious, Bawden and David Hockney, finds John F. Müller

Country-house treasures

John Goodall treads the silver-grey elm floorboards of the remarkably well-preserved 1630s hall dais at Restoration House in Rochester, Kent

Culture and commerce

John Martin Robinson marvels at the rejuvenation of Salts Mill, a vast Victorian factory building at Saltaire in West Yorkshire, founded on the prosperity of the British wool trade

The good stuff

Enter the new year fresh-faced and on tip-top form with the help of Amie Elizabeth White’s selection of skincare stars

Glistens like coral

The proliferation of new types of Japanese flowering quince prompted a four-year RHS trial. Charles Quest-Ritson cheers the rise of Chaenomeles and reveals his favourite varieties

Arts & Antiques

The exquisitely rendered Cornish luggers sailing serenely across Henry Scott Tuke’s 1908 new year card to a friend make it a prized possession for Michael Grist, as he tells Carla Passino

Culture, History, Homes, Magazines, Travel

COUNTRY LIFE MAGAZINE – DECEMBER 24, 2025

December 24, 2025 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

An image of a young boy and girl waving at the flying scotsman as it steams past

COUNTRY LIFE MAGAZINE: The latest issue features ‘Just The Ticket’ – The Golden Age of the Railway

Full steam ahead

Jonathan Self recalls the ‘railway mania’ that gripped the nation after the inaugural 26-mile run of Stephenson’s Locomotion No.1 from Shildon to Stockton

Mind the (hungry) gap!

Starched tablecloths and wood panelling have Emma Hughes dreaming of a return to the golden age of railway dining

Spread from Country Life 24 December 2025

Nature on track

The 20,000 miles of railway lines criss-crossing the country are welcome ‘green corridors’ for wildlife, finds Vicky Liddell

Small, but mighty

Octavia Pollock marvels at the magic of miniature railways tracing small-gauge tracks across the British countryside

Rhythm of the night

There is a wonderful sense of romance and adventure in over-night rail travel. Mary Miers revels in the sleeper-train experience

All signals green

From Suffolk to Scotland, via the Settle-Carlisle line, blooming station gardens are a sight to behold for Andrew Martin

Picking up steam

All aboard! Octavia Pollock hails the heroes of heritage railways who ensure our fascination with the age of steam rolls on and on

Drawing tracks

Carla Passino explores art’s love affair with the railway, seen in the bustle of Earl’s platforms and the serenity of a Ravilious carriage

Why don’t we ask the next train to take our love to Daddy?

The much-loved locomotives of literature reveal the softening of our attitudes to steam travel, suggests Deborah Nicholls-Lee

Rail travel

Emma Love lets the train take the strain as she rounds up the latest in luxury journeys, calling at stations from Rome to Rajasthan

The missing lynx in the food chain?

Roger Morgan-Grenville weighs up the pros and cons of calls to reintroduce an apex predator — the lynx — to the British Isles

Properties of the week

Julie Harding gets the party started with a quintet of homes boasting entertaining spaces

Sacred grounds

Tim Richardson applauds Paulo Pejrone’s revival of the 16th-century monastic gardens of Il Redentore in Venice, Italy

Travel, Videos, Views

Switzerland Train Travel: The Glacier Express – Brig To Andermatt (Dec 2023)

Video December 24, 2023 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

AKSense – Zurich Films (December 24, 2023) – The Glacier Express is the world’s slowest and Switzerland’s most elegant express train. This video is between Brig and Andermatt stations.

The entire route takes around 8 hours, the Glacier Express takes you across the Swiss Alps between St. Moritz and Zermatt regions, passing through narrow valleys, tight curves, 91 tunnels, and over 291 bridges including the unique Landwasser viaduct (UNESCO site).

Travel, Videos, Views

Swiss Views: Riding The Brienz Rothorn Railway

Video July 12, 2023 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Sylvia Michel Photography (July 12, 2023) – The Brienz Rothorn Railway is a tourist rack railway in Switzerland, which climbs from Brienz, at the eastern end of Lake Brienz, to the summit of the Brienzer Rothorn.

Video timeline: 0:00 Starting our journey in @brienzamsee 0:20 @brienzrothornbahn8299 is taking us through the village 0:50 Steam train with different Locomotives 1:09 Geldried 1:25 Planalp Middle station 2:36 Arrival at Brienzer Rothorn 2:58 Meeting the Ibexes 4:01 Ibex Knowledge 5:00 Sunrise 5:27 Ibexes again 7:07 Going down again with @brienzrothornbahn

The railway is 7.6 kilometres long, is built to 800 mm gauge, and uses the Abt double lamella rack system.

Analysis, Cities, Economics, Reviews, Transportation, Videos

Rail Transport: Chicago’s Vulnerability To Strikes

Video December 19, 2022 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Wall Street Journal (December 19, 2022) – In recent years, the city’s railyards have seen severe bottlenecks as the supply chain choked up nationally. With $3 trillion in goods traveling through Chicago every year, the city is the busiest rail hub in the U.S. WSJ breaks down how important rail is to the region, and how vulnerable the system is to a work stoppage like a strike.

Illustration: Adele Morgan

Historical, Tours, Travel, Videos, Views

Views: The Scarborough & Whitby Railway Route In North Yorkshire, England

Video October 23, 2022 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

ScarboroughTourist – The Scarborough & Whitby Railway was a railway line from Scarborough to Whitby in North Yorkshire, England. The line followed a difficult but scenic route along the North Yorkshire coast.

The line opened in 1885 and closed in 1965 as part of the Beeching Axe. The route, now a multi-use path, is known as “The Cinder Track”

The track was subsequently lifted in 1968, although speculation about a potential potash mine near Hawsker meant that the track from there to Whitby remained in place until 1972.

The line is now used as a bridleway for cycles, pedestrians and horses, known as the “Scarborough to Whitby Rail Trail”, “Scarborough to Whitby Cinder Track”, or simply “The Cinder Track”.

In the 1980s an area of the former line in the Northstead district of Scarborough was briefly used as football and cricket pitches.

In 2018 plans to spend £3.5 million to repair and improve the Cinder Track were backed by the borough council. The plans would see the route resurfaced, drainage improved and the creation of a new management body to oversee the development of the track. There is also the possibility of introducing a visitor centre, cafe and pay and display parking to generate ongoing funding to maintain the route. Work upgrading the track began in January 2020 and the first stage is now complete.

News, Podcasts, Politics

Morning News: NATO Allies Gather, Eastern Europe, Belgrade-Budapest By Rail

Audio March 24, 2022 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

We’ll have the latest as Biden and European allies gather in Brussels for a high-stakes Nato summit. Plus, Estonia calls for Nato to build up a permanent force in Eastern Europe, a flick through today’s papers, and Monocle’s Balkans correspondent, Guy De Launey, boards the Belgrade-Budapest railway.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5xahlT4lMq4z8zZmb17FAs

Analysis, Cities, Technology, Transportation, Urban Planning, Videos

Public Transit: Seattle’s $54 Billion Railway (Video)

Video February 9, 2022 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

This could be the most ambitious public transit project in America.

SEATTLE has become one of the most attractive cities in the United States.

The tech boom has helped bring in some 1,000 new residents every week. Of course, all those new Seattleites need a way to get around, and things are getting crowded.

In response, the city has been expanding its rail system, and fast. The latest project, Sound Transit 3, will invest $54BN over the next 25 years to expand the network five-fold.

With the passage of the $1.2 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, American cities are getting a chance to rethink their public transit systems with fresh infrastructure funding.

And Seattle’s expansion might be the country’s most ambitious project yet.

Stories, Travel, Videos, Views

Train Travel: Guildford To Aldershot In England

Video December 2, 2021 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7kDjLYem8Q

Michael Portillo resumes his tour of the Home Counties in the picturesque and historic county town of Guildford. His 1936 Bradshaw’s guide commends its ‘fine old castle keep’ and guildhall but makes no mention of its hilltop cathedral.

Michael meets head guide Janet Matthews to discover the origins of the first Anglican cathedral to be built on a new site in the south of England since the Reformation – begun in 1936. He finds splendid architecture and modern materials have combined to produce a gloriously open building full of space and light. Michael climbs its 160 foot tower for a panoramic view of Surrey.

Michael’s next stop is Chilworth, from which he follows his guide to Newlands Corner on the slopes of the North Downs. At this popular beauty spot, the famous crime writer Agatha Christie disappeared, sparking a massive search and a tabloid frenzy. A Christie biographer pieces the puzzle together for Michael.

Heading west across the county, Michael reaches the Georgian market town of Farnham with its 12th-century castle, once home to the bishops of Winchester. Intrigued by his Bradshaw’s reference to a famous Farnham painter, WH Allen, Michael joins the artist’s great-great-niece in the castle’s splendid gardens to learn more about him. A kind Farnham artist encourages Michael to commit the castle to canvas in his own way. After a luxurious night at the castle, Michael crosses into Hampshire to reach Aldershot. At the home of the British Army, he hears how in the years leading up to the World War II, the town began to receive conscripts for military training.