Heritage railway
A heritage railway or heritage railroad (U.S. usage) is a railway operated as living history to re-create or preserve railway scenes of the past. Heritage railways are often old railway lines preserved in a state depicting a period (or periods) in the history of rail transport.
"Tourist train" redirects here. Not to be confused with Trackless train.Infrastructure[edit]
Heritage railway lines have historic rail infrastructure which has been substituted (or made obsolete) in modern rail systems. Historical installations, such as hand-operated points, water cranes, and rails fastened with hand-hammered rail spikes, are characteristic features of heritage lines. Unlike tourist railways, which primarily carry tourists and have modern installations and vehicles, heritage-line infrastructure creates views and soundscapes of the past in operation.
In popular culture[edit]
The preservation of the Talyllyn Railway was the inspiration for the 1953 Ealing Studios comedy The Titfield Thunderbolt. The film is centred on the preservation of a fictional Somerset branch line from Titfield to Mallingford. Filmed on the Camerton branch in the summer of 1952, the branch was lifted after production had finished.
Many preserved railways also served as a filming location for several production companies; for example, the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway served as a filming location for the 1970 adaptation of The Railway Children.
Series three of Survivors uses heritage railways to help reestablish transportation, communication and trade in post-apocalyptic England.