Street running in the UK

[Phil Traxson]

The road surface in that last picture is a modellers dream(or nightmare)

[Andy Kirkham]

OK, it's not in the UK now, but it used to be

Flagman Alexandra Road Dublin by Darren Hall, on Flickr

[montyburns56]

It looks like Alexandra Road is a popular location for photographers...

 

 

Look left, look right and slowly pull away...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 30, 2020 by montyburns56

[F-UnitMad]

Is that line still operational?* Suddenly Irish Rail looks very interesting!! (my only previous experience has been the NIR network & the Enterprise Belfast to Dublin run. Oh and the Downpatrick & Co Down Railway, and the transport museum at Cultra.)

 

*Edit: quick look on google maps seems to suggest not. Much of it looks abandoned and/or built over, and no wagons on sidings that look to be still accessible.

Edited May 30, 2020 by F-UnitMad

[Nearholmer]

I drove round there a couple of years ago and formed the impression that it was OOU, but is is sometimes hard to tell with rarely-used sections.

[108]

Alexandra Road is still in regular weekday use for the Tara Mines ore trains, 2-3 each way per day. These are the brown bogie tipplers in the pictures above. 

[Paul H Vigor]

Assuming its not already been mentioned: The Camborne and Redruth Tramways hauled mineral traffic [tin ore] through the streets using overhead electric locomotives.

[montyburns56]

Someone posted some pictures of the Cork City Railway on the Abandoned rails thread and I've found some great pictures of it on Flickr...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can't catch me...

 

 

[montyburns56]

 

 

 

 

[The Johnster]

On 30/05/2020 at 23:52, Paul H Vigor said:

Assuming its not already been mentioned: The Camborne and Redruth Tramways hauled mineral traffic [tin ore] through the streets using overhead electric locomotives.

There were steam locomotives here before there was a tramway...  Going up Camborne Hill Coming Down with Cap'n Dick and all that.

[Paul H Vigor]

11 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

There were steam locomotives here before there was a tramway...  Going up Camborne Hill Coming Down with Cap'n Dick and all that.

Puffing Devil, eh?

[The Johnster]

The dangers of an extended liquid lunch. 

[Guy Rixon]

Chapel tramway, Southampton; the wharves are on the River Itchen. Less well known than the tramway between Eastern and Western Docks. This was still running when I lived in Southampton as a child but closed before I was old enough to go exploring the town. IIRC, one of the wharves retained an internal railway after the connection to BR was severed.

 

PS: if one zooms on the OS map (available free on the Library of Scotland site), there's a curiosity: the sharp curve from the exchange sidings to the tramway goes through the back yard of a house in Melbourne Street; it nearly goes through the outside loo! My guess is that the tramway was original worked by horses and connected via a turntable. The curve was presumably put in later when the industrial users got locomotives.

Edited May 16, 2021 by Guy Rixon

[Londontram]

I did add a few pictures of the white Swan coal yard earlier in this post but I can't see these on there so I'll post them now. 

 In Great Yarmouth from Vauxhall station (1 of 3 in the town originally) the line crossed a girder bridge and ran on the street for about half a mile to get to the docks at hall quay. Here is a selection of pictures with discription and any credits if available.

The first is the girder bridge over the river Bure as you leave Vauxhall station

Taken across the road from the previous photo on a different occasion you can see the girder bridge in the back ground

Crossing the approach to Haven bridge and about to enter the docks

Edited May 18, 2021 by Londontram
Add content

[russ p]

2 hours ago, Londontram said:

I did add a few pictures of the white Swan coal yard earlier in this post but I can't see these on there so I'll post them now. 

 In Great Yarmouth from Vauxhall station (1 of 3 in the town originally) the line crossed a girder bridge and ran on the street for about half a mile to get to the docks at hall quay. Here is a selection of pictures with discription and any credits if available.

The first is the girder bridge over the river Bure as you leave Vauxhall station

Taken across the road from the previous photo on a different occasion you can see the girder bridge in the back ground

Crossing the approach to Haven bridge and about to enter the docks

 

 

Excellent pictures,  what were the disused points in the second picture for?

I walked the course of the line through white Swan yard and round to Beech a couple of months back . Hardly anything left

[Londontram]

31 minutes ago, russ p said:

 

 

Excellent pictures,  what were the disused points in the second picture for?

I walked the course of the line through white Swan yard and round to Beech a couple of months back . Hardly anything left

The first set ran into the Lacons brewery building on the right hand side the second set going off to the rights ran to the white Swan/hole in the wall and if you go to the left you go over the girder bridge into Vauxhall station yard.

No there's not much to see around the whole in the wall the court house being built on the site of the coal yard. A few gate posts still survive on either side of the fiat garage.

[Pacific231G]

On 16/05/2021 at 10:49, Guy Rixon said:

Chapel tramway, Southampton; the wharves are on the River Itchen. Less well known than the tramway between Eastern and Western Docks. This was still running when I lived in Southampton as a child but closed before I was old enough to go exploring the town. IIRC, one of the wharves retained an internal railway after the connection to BR was severed.

 

PS: if one zooms on the OS map (available free on the Library of Scotland site), there's a curiosity: the sharp curve from the exchange sidings to the tramway goes through the back yard of a house in Melbourne Street; it nearly goes through the outside loo! My guess is that the tramway was original worked by horses and connected via a turntable. The curve was presumably put in later when the industrial users got locomotives.

I think  the tramway at Corralls Wharf was still operating in 1979 when I went to work at South Western House (the former SW Hotel adjoining the terminus station) The tramway between Western and Eastern Docks certainly was and for a couple of years and I saw it more than once.

[br2975]

Street running in Cardiff Docks, with 08854  and a brace of ASW internal users having crossed the Communication Passage Swingbridge, 12th. April, 2002.

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Thirty one years earlier I watched HS4000 'Kestrel' going in the opposite direction,  top and tailed by two Class 08s, en-route to the Queen Alexandra Dock (out of shot, left) and eventually Russia.

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This bridge was also the scene of a major pitched battle several years after I took the photo; when troops from U.N.I.T. engaged alien life forms known as 'Cybermen'

.

Brian R

Edited May 19, 2021 by br2975

[Nearholmer]

Does that loco have two sets of traffic lights fixed to the front of it, and if so, why?

[br2975]

36 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Does that loco have two sets of traffic lights fixed to the front of it, and if so, why?

The lights form part of the Hima-Sella remote control apparatus.

(The loco can be controlled by R/C from the ground, or driven normally from the cab)

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The driver operates the loco from the ground, using a control pack strapped to his chest ( there were only male drivers at that time ).

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The lights on the front and rear of the loco replicate the operators command from the chest pack

i.e.

white light - loco going forward, shown on the leading end of the loco - so the lights at the other endo f the loco would show red.

red light - loco in reverse, shown on the trailing end of the loco - so the light at the other end of the loco would show white

amber light - loco standing by or 'thinking'.

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The main electrical gubbins were mounted in a box on the rear wall of the cab.

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When working under R/C the chest pack has a vigilance device, which bleeps at intervals, and which the driver must acknowledge, or the loco comes to a stand.

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The loco also has emergency cut out buttons at all four corners (visible above the buffers in the photo of 08854 attached).

 

The other photos here show some of the fittings on 08466.

.

Brian R

Edited May 19, 2021 by br2975

[57xx]

On 18/05/2021 at 19:35, Pacific231G said:

I think  the tramway at Corralls Wharf was still operating in 1979 when I went to work at South Western House (the former SW Hotel adjoining the terminus station) The tramway between Western and Eastern Docks certainly was and for a couple of years and I saw it more than once.

 

I can vividly remember the tracks inset into the road at Town Quay and having to walk over them after getting off the Hythe Ferry. Vague recollections of seeing very occasional workings in the late 70s/early 80s. Went to South Western House a few times too for Radio Solent's Albert's Gang.

[Pacific231G]

58 minutes ago, 57xx said:

 

I can vividly remember the tracks inset into the road at Town Quay and having to walk over them after getting off the Hythe Ferry. Vague recollections of seeing very occasional workings in the late 70s/early 80s. Went to South Western House a few times too for Radio Solent's Albert's Gang.

I saw transfers between the west and east docks but don't remember seeing any workings on to Town Quay itself and can't remember whether the tracks were still connected.  I toyed with living in Hythe but the ferry stopped too early so I lived in Bitterne instead. At SW House I mostly worked on the second floor, one up from Radio Solent (as we also saw ourselves)  The far too small TV studio was on the first floor in a former smoking lounge so a lot of charging up and down stairs was involved especially as a lot of our tech. facilities were also on the 2nd floor and, when I was directing South Today, I remember swearing a lot- it was that sort of atmosphere.

I quite often saw the boat trains for the QE2 etc. often with Pullmans,  runnning past the old terminus station (whose filled in platforms were our very insecure car park)  and crossing Canute Road into the docks. Though it was called a tramway (and being unfenced it probably legally was) and  crossed a few entrances and access roads to various piers etc. from memory I think the tramway mostly ran on its own right of way  with a strip of grass and a low barrier separating it from  Platform Road. 

Edited May 19, 2021 by Pacific231G

[petethemole]

Town Quay comprises the waterfont road past the Isle of Wight ferry terminal and as far east as Gods House Tower, as well as the projecting quay/pier.  The road had developed from the waterfront quay. 

 

Town Quay east of the pier, late 19th cent.

 

Town Quay west of the pier, 1920s.

 

The railway tracks continued west to serve the Royal Pier until the New Docks were built and the line was extended.

Edited May 19, 2021 by petethemole

[Pacific231G]

30 minutes ago, petethemole said:

Town Quay comprises the waterfont road past the Isle of Wight ferry terminal and as far east as Gods House Tower, as well as the projecting quay.  The road had developed from the watefront quay. 

 

 

Thanks for these Pete

It was the easten end that ran parallel to Platform Road but was separated from it that I was more familiar with. The sad thing about Southampton then was that Town Quay and Mayflower Park was almost the only place where you could actually get  to the waterfront. Everything else was firmly closed off behind high walls and fences. I often thought how much more attractive it mght have been  if the waterfront had continued round the foot of the old town walls. The Eastern Docks cut that off from Southampton Water (though it had been mudflats) so the prospect from the city walls was of the factories etc. that filled in behind the long quay of the Eastern Docks. 

 

In the 1980s I made a programme for BBC South (long lost I'm sure) called "Sea Change City" looking at how the city's identity and role was changing as the docks had become less central to its life.  Of course as a cruise port, Southampton now (in normal times) handles more passengers than the great liners ever did. 

Edited May 19, 2021 by Pacific231G

[roythebus1]

Have a look on the British Film Archive, it seems to have everything listed in there.