Stone Age Double Slip

[Brian Harrap]

There's an arkyalogical dig and survey taking place at Ventiford basin. The basin is/was the interchange between the Stover Canal and the Haytor Granite Tramway. Looks to me like they've unearthed Barney Rubble's original stone double slip. Gauge about 4' 3". flangeway gaps as you find them. Some members of the Stover Canal restoration group have realigned a couple of the stone rail setts where they had become out of gauge and like to claim that this work is probably the first bit of original stone trackwork to have refettled in 200 years. Great fun. Brian

 

[garethashenden]

Is that a slip? Or is it just a crossing?

[Ozexpatriate]

Is this part of a portage?

 

Having looked it up I presume it is part of the Haytor Granite Tramroad. Very interesting.

Edited May 19, 2016 by Ozexpatriate

[Edwin_m]

A prototype for Brio? 

[t-b-g]

Any chance of that one appearing in "Templot"?

[Colin_McLeod]

At about 4'3" gauge that makes 16.5mm track about right!

[Talltim]

Is that a slip? Or is it just a crossing?

I suspect the tolerances allow it to be a slip

[kevinlms]

Interesting buffer stops!

[Enterprisingwestern]

Expect to see it modelled on a quai near you soon, can't see Brian resisting.

 

Mike.

[Brian Harrap]

Is that a slip? Or is it just a crossing?

Depends which way you asked Dobbin to pull the wagon(s) to some extent I expect. Actually, in common with all the turnouts on the tramway (there were/are a lot of them - threeways as well) wagons could be directed by metal or wooden "blades" pivoted in the small holes I have highlighted on the picture. I don't think we have ever knowingly found one of these blades but clearly this is how it was done. Maybe it's more like two turnouts back to back but I like to think of it as an early slip.

[Brian Harrap]

Is this part of a portage?

 

Having looked it up I presume it is part of the Haytor Granite Tramroad. Very interesting.

No portage on this system, Michael. Straight forward transshipment (of granite) from tramway to barges. Before the tramway from Haytor clay was loaded at the basin. Several crane bases are still extant as are the remnants of a barge which the Baroness is unearthing as I type this. Brian

[Brian Harrap]

Expect to see it modelled on a quai near you soon, can't see Brian resisting.

 

Mike.

Can I bring the timescale forward a bit and use a mechanical horse? B

[Pacific231G]

Depends which way you asked Dobbin to pull the wagon(s) to some extent I expect. Actually, in common with all the turnouts on the tramway (there were/are a lot of them - threeways as well) wagons could be directed by metal or wooden "blades" pivoted in the small holes I have highlighted on the picture. I don't think we have ever knowingly found one of these blades but clearly this is how it was done. Maybe it's more like two turnouts back to back but I like to think of it as an early slip.

Very interesting Brian.

I've been fascinated by the Haytor Granite Tramway since exploring much of the upper, almost completely intact, moorland section thirty five or so years ago. The sets are so complete in large parts of it that a suitable wagon could surely still traverse it and it's a little surprising that this hasn't been done in the interests of experimental archaeology to measure forces and how much a horse could haul etc. 

There is a very good account of the Tramway and the quarries it served here http://www.9fairfield.eclipse.co.uk/haytor/haytorone.html

 

There have since ancient times been "grooveways" where the horse simple pulled a single wagon onto the appropriate route at junctions but evidence suggests that on the Haytor tramway wagons carrying blocks of granite descended by gravity in trains of twelve. Facing points would therefore have required something to direct them onto the appropriate route and these were simple feathers mounted in the holes in the sets. Presumably these were held either by friction or some kind of groove in the set after being kicked over and similar devices appear on many other early waggonways/tramways/plateways/dramways (and all the other names these things had in different parts of the country) .  I can't help thinking that if these feathers or point blades had been made of iron some would have surely survived as much larger (and therefore of greater scrap value) iron objects remain in the quarries. Wooden feathers would surely have rotted away completely after the best part of two centuries, especially out on the open moors. I would though have thought that modern archaeological methods would be able to identify by the traces left behind whether the holes in the sets wherever tracks diverged had once been the pivot for iron or wooden objects.

 

Apparently for the descent the horses accompanied the wagons that they would later pull back up the tramway. On the granite track speeds would have been far lower than on an iron railway like the ffestiniog so there would have been no need for wagons for the horses to ride on and I suspect  the horses had a role in the descent. UPDATE After reading a bit more about it, it seems that the horses were hitched to the rear of the trains of wagons to help brake them for the descent. 

 

What I find intriguing about the Haytor tramway is how late it was built and operated, from 1820 into at least the 1840s so well into the era of steam railways.

 

 

Something I read recently shed light - at least for me- on the relative advantages of plateways with unflanged wheels and edge rails (railways) with flanged wheels. The received wisdom always seems to have been that the great advantage of plateways was that the wagons that ran on them could also be used on roads (rather like a guided busway) and this was included in several prospectuses included that for the Surrey Iron Railway (which was of course a plateway)  There is a major catch in this argument though as that the leading axle on road wagons needs to be steerable in order to follow the horse around bends whilst those on any kind of guided track need to definitely not be free to swivel in order to be guided by the track. An "amphibious" vehicle would therefore have to have had some way of locking its steering which would have made them far more complicated to both build and operate. In practice the wagons used on plateways seem to have been confined to them.

 

You may also find this interesting from three years ago.

 

http://www.thejournal.co.uk/news/north-east-news/river-tyne-200-year-old-5325105

Edited May 23, 2016 by Pacific231G

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

...Some members of the Stover Canal restoration group have realigned a couple of the stone rail setts where they had become out of gauge and like to claim that this work is probably the first bit of original stone trackwork to have refettled in 200 years...

 It's not getting passed off as fit for service until they have test run a wagon train over it surely?

 

Regarding this refettling claim for stone track and the 'amphibious' possibility.

The excavation and realignment of the circa 600 BC onwards Corinthian 'Diolkos' that can be seen in Greece well predates this work. Remarkably there is contemporary documentary evidence for how well this system worked: the earliest reference to a 'guideway' system anywhere I believe.

There's a location in Germany - which memory is failing to recall - where you can see the remains of a manufacturing and repair shop for the wagons of a very similar flangeway system. It is fully equipped with flangeways, so they weren't even attempting to move them 'off rail' when they were making or repairing them.

[Nearholmer]

231G

 

There were, even later, rail/road wagons with facility to pin the "turning thing" under the front of the cart, but it seems that what really stopped bi-modalism in its tracks (!) was friction.

 

A road cart/wagon has quite wide wheel tyres, whereas the best haulage capability on iron plates was got with a fairly narrow tyre.

 

The SIR was into efficiency trials, to find out how many wagons a horse could pull, under good conditions, and they got some pretty impressive results.

 

I don't know much about this period, but if you can access the proceedings of the various "early railways" conferences, they are full of fascinating stuff.

 

A really good book about an even earlier period is "Early Wooden Railways" by M J T Lewis, and there are some papers by him about rut-ways (including the famous Gozo ones, I think) available by Googling.

 

Kevin

[Pacific231G]

 It's not getting passed off as fit for service until they have test run a wagon train over it surely?

 

Regarding this refettling claim for stone track and the 'amphibious' possibility.

The excavation and realignment of the circa 600 BC onwards Corinthian 'Diolkos' that can be seen in Greece well predates this work. Remarkably there is contemporary documentary evidence for how well this system worked: the earliest reference to a 'guideway' system anywhere I believe.

There's a location in Germany - which memory is failing to recall - where you can see the remains of a manufacturing and repair shop for the wagons of a very similar flangeway system. It is fully equipped with flangeways, so they weren't even attempting to move them 'off rail' when they were making or repairing them.

Though its tempting to exagerate its equivalence to early railways and wagonways from the seventeenth century onwards,  it does seem that the Diolkos was far more of an organised guided system than most early archaeologists, not being engineers, realised. They tended to see grooves worn in the surface of a road but images do show something purpose built for guiding vehicles. The guidance possibly wouldn't have been as positive as on something like the Haytor tramway and unlike the Haytor, the guideways were built into the surface of a paved road that would have been able to take other vehicles as well. I'm not sure how strong the evidence is for more advanced railwaylike features such as passing loops but I doubt if you'd be looking at things like points with moving switches. 

 

The technology of the Diolkos may have derived from that used for launching vessels from slipways (I've seen similar grooved guides in more modern slipways) and both the Greeks and Romans were clearly familiar with simple guideways as they used them for apparently mundane purposes like moving stage sets and scenery in their theatres (there's a good example of this in the Roman theatre in Lyon) 

 

Update 

I've just found online the very interesting 2001 paper by Dr. M J T Lewis (University of Hull).Railways in the Greek and Roman World http://www.yieldopedia.com/paneladmin/reports/fb8f151d1ee5d60af0482d429fd27c10.pdf

I have a printed copy of this but wasn't sure from where I'd got  In this paper Dr. Lewis raises the interesting possibility (but is very clear that it is only a possibility) of a continuity between the primitive railways used in mines by the Romans and the medieval mine railways that formed the pre-history of the sort of railway I just travelled on from Paddington. He does mention the Gozo rutways in that but unlike the Diolkos doesn't see them qualifying as railways as theyre really  "accidental" mofiifications to an ordinary roadway.

 

As a "callow youth" in 1974  (his words) Lewis wrote the book  Early Wooden Railways.that Kevin has referred to. For the four hundredth anniversary in 2004  of the first recorded British wagonway, he wrote a follow up paper on its origins  Reflections on 1604 

http://www.rchs.org.uk/trial/ER5%20website%20-%20exemplar%20paper.pdf

Dr.Lewis is though certain that while influences from mining elsewhere in Europe may have helped the development of that first waggonway, the progress from that to the modern railway in the first quarter of the nineteenth century happened entirely in Britain and mostly in the North East.  

 

Dr. Lewis is also a historian of the Ffestiniog Railway and was one of its pioneering "deviationists"

Edited May 23, 2016 by Pacific231G

[garethashenden]

Can I bring the timescale forward a bit and use a mechanical horse? B

How about something like the Faller road system? I'm sure you can come up with a way to get the horse's legs to move.

[Brian Harrap]

Thanks to all who have shown an interest in this. Such a lot of fascinating stuff seems to be out there. I had not heard, David (Pacific231G) of the wooden tramway on the Tyne - something to be explored when I'm next up that way. You say you explored the upper part of the Haytor line many years ago. I have lived in the vicinity for the past 40 years or so and regular forays onto the tramway have taken place and it's certainly a novelty to show visitors when they come down in the summer. The upper part of the line you will be pleased to hear is still much the same with recently some more of the line down towards Yarner Woods being uncovered. The Diolkos I think I was aware of and I belive there was a similar thing envisaged (at a much later date) across the Panama. All very interesting. By the way since my earlier statement of not finding any of the turnout "blades" the remains of some sort of metal device has been found in one of the holes in the "slip" - top left in my annotated picture above. Also, just to quell any undue excitement, I have filed any notion of a working model of this in the 'too difficult' bin.

[Worsdell forever]

So if the Baron has filed it in the 'too difficult' bin then us mere mortals have no chance.

[Pacific231G]

Thanks to all who have shown an interest in this. Such a lot of fascinating stuff seems to be out there. I had not heard, David (Pacific231G) of the wooden tramway on the Tyne - something to be explored when I'm next up that way. You say you explored the upper part of the Haytor line many years ago. I have lived in the vicinity for the past 40 years or so and regular forays onto the tramway have taken place and it's certainly a novelty to show visitors when they come down in the summer. The upper part of the line you will be pleased to hear is still much the same with recently some more of the line down towards Yarner Woods being uncovered. The Diolkos I think I was aware of and I belive there was a similar thing envisaged (at a much later date) across the Panama. All very interesting. By the way since my earlier statement of not finding any of the turnout "blades" the remains of some sort of metal device has been found in one of the holes in the "slip" - top left in my annotated picture above. Also, just to quell any undue excitement, I have filed any notion of a working model of this in the 'too difficult' bin.

When they found the wooden tramway in 2013 on the site of the Neptune shipyard in Walker, Newcastle, the archaeologists were looking for Roman remain but what they did find was far more interesting. I think the site was being dug prior to redevelopment so don't know how this find will be further explored or protected. I can't find anything more about it since 2013. I hadn't heard before that wooden wagon wheels needed to be soaked to prevent them from drying out and cracking but that apparenty was why the Hay Wain in Constable's painting was standing in the river  (I assume modern wooden wagon wheels use varnish instead but does this depend on the type of timber being used?)

 

Haytor is interesting because it seems to be effectively a granite version of an iron plateway built in 1820 long after iron plateways and railways had become familiar- a case of the iron age coming before the stone age- but very logical given the local materials available. Stone tramways do though seem to have been incredibly rare. Given that design precedence and the presumed use of iron wheeled wagons  it probably would make sense for the moving tongue switches on the Haytor Tramway  to have been made of iron rather than oak, perhaps rather like the one on this reconstructed plateway- (I don't recoginese the location, does anyone know it?

 

(image Creative Commons by Brian Voon Yee Yap 2010)

Edited May 22, 2016 by Pacific231G

[PhilJ W]

The use of the Surrey Iron Railway wagons on the road was indeed envisioned but it proved impractical not only for the reasons stated but the wheels which in most or all cases would have been one piece cast or wrought iron would have been too fragile. They would also require some sort of surfaced roads which in the period concerned would have most likely been stone setts or cobbles, the noise created by the wheels on such a surface would be horrendous.

[unclebobkt]

       There's an arkyalogical dig and survey taking place at Ventiford basin. The basin is/was the interchange between the Stover Canal and the Haytor Granite Tramway. Looks to me like they've unearthed Barney Rubble's original stone double slip. Gauge about 4' 3". flangeway gaps as you find them. Some members of the Stover Canal restoration group have realigned a couple of the stone rail setts where they had become out of gauge and like to claim that this work is probably the first bit of original stone trackwork to have refettled in 200 years. Great fun. Brian

 

        Only in England would this happen!  

[unclebobkt]

         The use of the Surrey Iron Railway wagons on the road was indeed envisioned but it proved impractical not only for the reasons stated but the wheels which in most or all cases would have been one piece cast or wrought iron would have been too fragile. They would also require some sort of surfaced roads which in the period concerned would have most likely been stone setts or cobbles, the noise created by the wheels on such a surface would be horrendous.

 

       I well-remember talking with an elderly & female relative who had been 'In service.' at the start of and into C20. about the noise of metal rimmed cart & coach wheels on London's cobbled setts.

 It was quite common, in the more exclusive of London's squares,  that when a Lady was confined in expectation of either birth or death for the square to be covered in straw to muffle the vehicles' wheels' noise and thus not disturb Madam during what could be a critical and/or life-giving/threatening time of her life.

 

       . 

[Ramblin Rich]

.... this reconstructed plateway- (I don't recognise the location, does anyone know it?

 

Richard_Trevithick_plateway CC Brian Voon Yee Yap.jpg

(image Creative Commons by Brian Voon Yee Yap 2010)

I immediately thought "Blist's Hill, Ironbridge" - and this page seems to show the same area (bottom row, second & third images).

 

Haytor tramway is a very unusual feature, we had a good wander over the section north of the Tor earlier this year, our 8 and 5 years old kids thought it was great, we'll probably have to go for a look every time we go up there from now on! Is  the Ventiford area going to be left 'open' to see in future?

Edited May 24, 2016 by Ramblin Rich

[Brian Harrap]

Yes Rich, the Ventiford area is going to be 'done up'. not too much like a country park I hope but even so better than being inaccessible and completely lost in the woods as it was. Quite a bit of tramway has been exposed there (not anything like as much as on the moor of course) and the aim later this year is to have the basin itself filled with water with perhaps a few ducks and things. The prospect of barge traffic from the basin to the Teign extends well beyond my lifetime. Worth a visit if you're passing. Baron