Steam Tramways - Rural - Great Britain & Ireland

[Nearholmer]

Well. To avoid causing total diversion in the LNER Y6 loco discussion, a place to talk about all these wonderful things.

 

Starting with a link to a good store of W&U material [broken link]

 

I particularly liked the early passenger luggage/guards van, which looks totally Irish, to me. There is a drawing of it in here

http://www.ragstonemodels.co.uk/uploads/4/8/6/4/48647195/wk1_-_no_9_instructions.pdf

 

Kevin

Edited August 8, 2016 by Nearholmer

[BernardTPM]

Guess the short-lived Alford & Sutton Tramway would count. Very much tramway style steam 'dummies' pulling an odd mix of tram type saloons and railway type wagons. Narrow gauge to boot.

[£1.38]

Guess the short-lived Alford & Sutton Tramway would count. Very much tramway style steam 'dummies' pulling an odd mix of tram type saloons and railway type wagons. Narrow gauge to boot.

 

I think you may be a little confused there. It was the Ravenglass & Eskdale that ran to Boot.

 

[Nearholmer]

Yes, the A&S wagons were close relations of those on the Lynton & Barnstaple, and the first batch for the West Carbery (Schull & Skibereen), IIRC they all came from Bristol C&W Co within a short span of time.

 

I built a van and an open from wood in 15mm/ft, and finished them about a millisecond before Accucraft introduced r-t-r versions in plastic in 16mm/ft, which simply proves the old rule!

 

K

[Edwardian]

Kelvedon Tollesbury Light Railway.  Not a tramway, but famously in later years the repository for a couple of W&U tramcars.  Before this, however, c.1905, it had its own tramcars, converted from old GE 6-wheelers, which also seem to have supplied about 50% of the structures on the line!

 

Great collection of images here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0IzumB7tUw

[NeilHB]

Kelvedon Tollesbury Light Railway. Not a tramway, but famously in later years the repository for a couple of W&U tramcars. Before this, however, c.1905, it had its own tramcars, converted from old GE 6-wheelers, which also seem to have supplied about 50% of the structures on the line!

 

Great collection of images here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0IzumB7tUw

Some wonderful photos there Edwardian, thank you for posting the link. I will confess that my knowledge of the Kelvedon & Tollesbury Light Railway is woefully inadequate - I must remedy this immediately as it looks to be a charming little railway. And home to the displaced W&U bogie tramcars to boot, so even better!

[BernardTPM]

Guess the short-lived Alford & Sutton Tramway would count. Very much tramway style steam 'dummies' pulling an odd mix of tram type saloons and railway type wagons. Narrow gauge to boot.

 

I think you may be a little confused there. It was the Ravenglass & Eskdale that ran to Boot.

 

 

I think you may have confused a little b with a big B   Still, it will b OK.

[pete_mcfarlane]

How about the Wantage tramway for some inspiration?

 

https://chasewaterstuff.wordpress.com/2011/05/18/the-wantage-tramway-plus-shannon/

[Pacific231G]

Not terribly rural perhaps, apart from its extension to Deanshanger, but the 42inch gauge Wolverton and Stony Stratford Tramway (1887-1926) was according to the Milton Keynes Museum the last steam street tramway in Gt Britain-  Presumably they classified the Wisbech & Upwell  as somethig else as its passenger services ran till 1927 though the Wantage tramway had closed to passengers on 1 August 1925.

 

Stony Stratford was a traditional coaching town that the LNWR missed by a couple of miles running through Wolverton. The tramway was built to connect the two. 

More about it here http://www.mkheritage.co.uk/mkm/

[Nearholmer]

231G

 

I've often thought about building a layout to be a "variation on the theme of the Deanshanger extension", because the real history leaves so much scope for imagination. The W&SST had good wagons, for a brief period too.

 

If you live locally, worth going to visit the tram sheds too; they are still there, in a yard off Wolverton Road, in use as builders workshops and stores, 90 years after the tramway closed.

 

Construction was started on a Newport Pagnell to Olney ST too; not to be confused with the construction of a conventional railway, which was also started, twice I think.

 

Edwardian

 

K&T admitted on grounds of extreme quirkiness.

 

Imagine the scene, late one winter afternoon; dim gaslight; thick fog beginning to coalesce.

 

Rough looking Bill Sykes-type, with attendant dog, enters booking office, followed by pale, timid and muffled-up young woman, barely more than a girl really, who looks about her like a nervous squirrel, her gloved right hand gently, yet fretfully stroking her midriff.

 

"One return, and one SINGLE to Tolleshunt Pier!", says he, clumsily plonking down a fistful of change. "I'm takin' me girl to the seaside.".

 

K

Edited August 9, 2016 by Nearholmer

[John_Hughes]

How about the Swansea and Mumbles / Oystermouth line*? Originally animal-powered, it moved on to steam and then to electricity.

 

As the first passenger carrying railway in the world it seems strange that it's been so quickly forgotten. If only the chumps in charge at Swansea now would bring it back - there's plenty of room for the RoW along almost the entire length of the line, and it would do wonders to cut the traffic!

 

* Railway or tramway? The company always used it insist that it was a railway, but partisans of both faiths still claim it as one of their own.

[Nearholmer]

Yes, like everyone else, it would seem, I'd forgotten the S&M, despite the fact that I got a good, early, copy of Lee's book about it recently. Does anyone know of a layout based on it?

 

We haven't mentioned the Glyn Valley, or the Portstewart either, which seems remiss. The fact that two locos from the latter are preserved, one at Cultra, the other at Hull, of all places, is really curious, given that it closed in 1926 (at very much the same time as the W&SST? Was the LMS using the General Strike as the final excuse to get rid of two anachronisms?) [Edit: Not in the case of Portstewart, it seems, because that closed four months before the strike].

 

And, the Dublin & Blessington was rural for a large part of its length.

 

Kevin

Edited August 9, 2016 by Nearholmer

[pete_mcfarlane]

Yes, like everyone else, it would seem, I'd forgotten the S&M...

It's a rather unfortunately titled railway - make sure that you google its full name and not the acronym!

 

It has some odd looking double deck coaches/tramcars that look like they've escaped from a Parisian suburban service. https://sites.google.com/site/ahistoryofmumbles/the-mumbles-railway-the-route-from-blackpill-to-oystermouth

Edited August 9, 2016 by pete_mcfarlane

[Pacific231G]

(The Swansea & Mumbles) It's a rather unfortunately titled railway - make sure that you google its full name and not the acronym!

 

It has some odd looking double deck coaches/tramcars that look like they've escaped from a Parisian suburban service. https://sites.google.com/site/ahistoryofmumbles/the-mumbles-railway-the-route-from-blackpill-to-oystermouth

There seems to have been an addiction to double deck steam tram trailers on rural tramways. Stony Stratford claims to have had the longest but most of them seem to have used them. I wonder if there's a clue to the similarity to tramways in Paris in the legend that appears along the route of the earliest one in the French capital "chemin de fer Americaine". The double-deck loco hauled trailers do have similarities to the "imperiales" used in the Paris suburbs, presumably the S&M wasn't restricted to Stephenson's loading gauge but they do look a lot safer than deathtraps like this.

 

I know that in France one reason why the companies liked them was that the extra seats on the roof meant more passengers for the same tare weight and with the early fairly weak locos that was an important consideration. Most British railways couldn't fit in an upper deck - it was a push for those in France- but with no overbridges or tunnels some of the steam tramways clearly could and more paying passengers per unit of tractive effort would have pleased the bean counters.

Edited August 9, 2016 by Pacific231G

[BG John]

I wonder how many people fell off trying to get to or from the seats on the upper deck! Did the guard have to check tickets while in motion?

[Pacific231G]

I wonder how many people fell off trying to get to or from the seats on the upper deck! Did the guard have to check tickets while in motion?

Far too many especially on trains returning to Paris Bastille from the Marne Valley on Sunday evenings with passengers who'd been having rather too good a time in the pleasure palaces.

The Impériales were eventually replaced by coaches with an enclosed upper deck- though still with open stairways

.

 

The last of these "Bidels" operated the short line from Enghien to Montmorency till it closed in 1954. They got their nickname from the wagons used to transport wild animals by the well known circus menagerie of Francois Bidel. Though safer they were more cramped than the Impériales that remained in service till 1931 and despite the obvious hazards many people preferred those especially in summer.

Edited August 9, 2016 by Pacific231G

[Nearholmer]

It would be interesting to know the etymology of the word a impereale in connection with double-decker railway carriages.

 

For dangerous upper decks, worth looking at some early horse tramcars, including the very first ones used in London. Accounts suggest that the upper deck was the province of fit young men (a.k.a. Daredevils), while more cautious older chaps, and women, travelled indoors, downstairs. Rather like a Stage Coach?

 

The huge W&SST cars were because it was a commuter line,making people to and from the railway works at Wolverton, including home and back at lunchtimes, IIRC. The Very short-lived rural bit had its own dinky little single-deck car, although there is a well known photo of a double-decker right out in the sticks.

 

K

[BG John]

Far too many especially on trains returning to Paris Bastille from the Marne Valley on Sunday evenings with passengers who'd been having rather too good a time in the pleasure palaces.

The Impériales were eventually replaced by coaches with an enclosed upper deck- though still with open stairways

9 MONTMORENCY_1951 cc Claude Shoshany .jpg.

 

The last of these "Bidels" operated the short line from Enghien to Montmorency till it closed in 1954. They got their nickname from the wagons used to transport wild animals by the well known circus menagerie of Francois Bidel. Though safer they were more cramped than the Impériales that remained in service till 1931 and despite the obvious hazards many people preferred those especially in summer.

For someone who likes finding uses for old and surplus models, that seems a good way to create one coach from two totally different ones! The underframe from the one that goes on top could no doubt be found a good use under something suitably eccentric. This is getting rather tempting, especially as it will soon be time to start planning my O-16.5 layout, where a certain amount of quirkiness and eccentricity can be more easily got away with!

[pete_mcfarlane]

Whilst we're on the subject of double deckers, does anyone fancy building a model of John Grantham's steam tramway carriage?

 

http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/John_Grantham

http://publictransportexperience.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/trams-short-term-advantage-at-wantage-1.html

[BG John]

Whilst we're on the subject of double deckers, does anyone fancy building a model of John Grantham's steam tramway carriage?

 

http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/John_Grantham

http://publictransportexperience.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/trams-short-term-advantage-at-wantage-1.html

Yes, but not sure I ever will!

[Nearholmer]

OK, I know I'm easily excited by such things, but look what I just found on-line!

 

Bogie wagon drawing for W&SST. Dated after the tramway closed!

 

According to Maggs in "Branchlines of Buckinghamshire", Midland C&W supplied eight 24ft bogie coal/coke wagons, two of the road-railers with retractable flanges, plus two parcels vans, for the tramway.

 

But, other accounts say the line had only four wagons in total, of which two were road-railers. Somewhere, I have drawing for the road-railer, from The Engineer, and it doesn't look like the wagons in the drawing, and I don't think it was built by Midland C&W.

 

I've never found a drawing or photo of the pure-railers, and don't know whether they were vans or opens.

 

It's all a bit mystifying; does anyone here present have conclusive answers?

 

Kevin

Edited August 9, 2016 by Nearholmer

[Pacific231G]

For someone who likes finding uses for old and surplus models, that seems a good way to create one coach from two totally different ones! The underframe from the one that goes on top could no doubt be found a good use under something suitably eccentric. This is getting rather tempting, especially as it will soon be time to start planning my O-16.5 layout, where a certain amount of quirkiness and eccentricity can be more easily got away with!

You'll be needing some drawings then

 

I don't think anyone currently produces a model of a Bidel. The interesting design feature is the swan neck chassis that enabled the floor of the lower deck to be lowered without compromising the strength of the vehicle.

 

Jouef did do a model of the death trap impériale based on the Ouest example which is in the Mulhouse railway museum along with an Est Bidel.

Though moulded from rather heavy plastic the Jouef model is dimensionally accurate and illustrates the features of the thing rather well.

 

The word Impériale seems to derive from stage coaches and diligences and is still used in reference to double deck buses and coaches. I did wonder if it was a slightly ironic reference for the poorer passengers riding on top of a stage coach in the open "riding like an emperor"

[lanchester]

Kelvedon Tollesbury Light Railway.  Not a tramway, but famously in later years the repository for a couple of W&U tramcars.  Before this, however, c.1905, it had its own tramcars, converted from old GE 6-wheelers, which also seem to have supplied about 50% of the structures on the line!

 

Great collection of images here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0IzumB7tUw

The double slip right at the base of the bank down from the High Level, about a minute in, looks like it's really asking for trouble! Was it always safely negotiated, do we know? (Try modelling it with that gradient and I bet you have problems).

[BG John]

You'll be needing some drawings then

I'm actually planning my O-16.5 layout at the moment, in anticipation of starting it fairly soon, but the current idea could rule out double deckers. Unless the area is inhabited by dwarfs, who have specially built rolling stock so they don't (or aren't allowed to) mix with the normal human population!

[Nearholmer]

Sounds far too like a system of apart-height for my liking.

 

K