Street running in the UK

[eastglosmog]

Plenty of these on Cardiff docks as well, but not proper street running in my view as docks, and their roads, are not open to the public (although you could wander onto and off most of them back in the day without hinderance).  I think street running implies trains mixing it with general road traffic and pedestrians.

I tend to agree, which is why in my post on Gloucester docks I specifically referred to the tracks along Llanthony and Commercial Roads, which were and still are public highways, open to all traffic.

[Guy Rixon]

Southampton had the well-known lines from Canute Road to the town pier (also, earlier, serving the royal pier) and on into the Western docks, as noted above. As a child, I remember watching diesel shunters (07s?) trundling along this stretch.

 

It also had some lesser-known tramways from the main line to the quays and small docks on the river Itchen; these were upstream from the Eastern docks. If memory serves, there was one that ran along Chapel Road and another, further north that ran to the quays near Belvedere Roads. These, apparently, were still running up to the early '80s.

[eastglosmog]

That's a fascinating bit of film. I know it's a bit off topic but was it totally gravity powered like the one that's still working near Lancaster bringing clay down to a brickworks. The loads have enough weight to keep the whole thing running without external power.

 

Jamie

Jamie - would that be Claughton brickworks aerial ropeway you are thinking of? Brings clay down from Claughton Moor to the brickworks 5 miles east of Lancaster, over the A683  It was closed during the depression from 2010 to 2014, but reopened.  There is a risk it may be shut again.  Owned by Forterra these days.  Thought I had a photo around somewhere, but can't find it.

Edited May 18, 2017 by eastglosmog

[Killian keane]

The WCPR roadside section

[Nearholmer]

Poole again, which I hope you'll pardon.

 

This is Nile Row, where the line to the quay left the station yard, and dived off down a backstreet. Bear in mind that B4 tank engines used to haul trains up and down this alleyway!

 

I think the picture is taken from where there is a figure 6.5 on the map, looking towards the station yard, which is at the top RH of the map.

 

The area was slightly 'improved' in the 1920s/30s, with new houses, so a diesel-era scene (class 03, no skirts) would be slightly different.

Edited May 18, 2017 by Nearholmer

[Edwin_m]

It is.

 

Beatties somewhere over the road, probably lunar house in the background etc we used to go elsewhere for a pint, down at the market, or the red deer (stag?).

 

Has it all been demolished? (I hope) I haven't been into the "town" for about thirty years.

 

K

Most of it is still there and just as hideous as you might expect from extrapolating it however many decades from when you last visited.  They are however making an attempt to smarten up Wellesley Road (which has trams, keeping this post vaguely on topic) and get rid of the horrible subways. 

[russ p]

On place that doesn't seen to have had a mention yet is Wells next the sea this has a quayside tramway which I believe was horse worked but loco's would have possibly worked between the quay and the station.

Not sure of it's exact closure date but I think it went out of use in the thirties

[grahame]

It is.

Beatties somewhere over the road, probably lunar house in the background etc we used to go elsewhere for a pint, down at the market, or the red deer (stag?).

Has it all been demolished? (I hope) I haven't been into the "town" for about thirty years.

K

I remember Beatties being almost opposite Davy,s wine lodge in the High Street. Other lunchtime pubs I frequented included the Dog and Bull (Youngs) in the Market, the Royal Standard (Fullers) under the flyover, the Ship (free) in the High Street, the Catherine Wheel, Bedford, Little Bull and the Theatre. Later the National West Bank in Katharine Street became a pub, a furniture shop in George Street transformed in to a 'spoons and the Bernie became a pub called the Town House after a fire.

 

G.

[Liam]

I remember Beatties being almost opposite Davy,s wine lodge in the High Street. Other lunchtime pubs I frequented included the Dog and Bull (Youngs) in the Market, the Royal Standard (Fullers) under the flyover, the Ship (free) in the High Street, the Catherine Wheel, Bedford, Little Bull and the Theatre. Later the National West Bank in Katharine Street became a pub, a furniture shop in George Street transformed in to a 'spoons and the Bernie became a pub called the Town House after a fire.

 

G.

May I politely remind you that this is a thread about railways on or near streets on a railway modelling forum, not pubs in towns in southern England. I think we're going a bit 

[Porcy Mane]

Well here's a bit of UK street running. (apologies for the inclusion of a pub).

 

 

These look about ready to partake in a bit of street running.

 

 

I think they fit the original posters criteria?   

 

P

 

(Number twelve looks a little nervous!)

Edited May 19, 2017 by Porcy Mane

[TomJ]

I think whatever the legal definition of it the section across Britannia Bridge definitely counts! Its the highlight of any trip on the WHR  for my son! The crossing siren is very useful as it is the signal to leave the shop/platform/Spooners/café and run to the roadside to watch! The sight of a large (for 2ft!!) Garratt and 9 or 10 coaches running down the street is very impressive and always gets a lot of attention.

The original WHR route through town involved a bit more street running, it went passed the now Shell garage and up Madog Street, rather than alongside the river.

 

Anwyay thanks for all the examples. What I was thinking of was perhaps a quayside station with a freight only branch running on to some more docks. It seems there are enough examples of this to be at least plausible, if not an exact copy of a prototype.

[jamie92208]

Jamie - would that be Claughton brickworks aerial ropeway you are thinking of? Brings clay down from Claughton Moor to the brickworks 5 miles east of Lancaster, over the A683  It was closed during the depression from 2010 to 2014, but reopened.  There is a risk it may be shut again.  Owned by Forterra these days.  Thought I had a photo around somewhere, but can't find it.

 

Yes that's the one.  It's normally powered by gravity but they do have a small engine to power it as they start loading buckets or running a new rope in.  From the data posted about the Dover one there seems to have been quite a bit of gravity assistance as the engine power is pretty low.

 

Jamie

[russ p]

coal was delivered by the ropeway

 

https://youtu.be/OxvdKprSsS0

 

there where big oil tanks located at the Eastern Docks  the last picture appears to be hauling tankers through the smoke

Seven and a half mile aerial ropeway AND a tunnel! wow, that's enough to get one in a frenzy!

I would have thought that must have been one of the longest ropeways

[grahame]

May I politely remind you that this is a thread about railways on or near streets on a railway modelling forum, not pubs in towns in southern England. I think we're going a bit 

 

A little lateral discussion does no harm and can expand ones understanding of the subject and areas discussed. The reminiscence of pubs was in response to a photo posted earlier.

 

G.

[Nearholmer]

Talking about pubs ......

 

(This is on Topic!)

[Liam]

https://static.wowcher.co.uk/images/deal/239316/70418-travel.jpg

 

Here's one you should try out at some point. Want a clue to its whereabouts? My profile name.

[Pacific231G]

The spread of these metre-gauge lines was incredible; as a rule of thumb, if you stumble across something resembling the trace of a railway in 'La France Profonde', it probably was one. In some cases, things like viaducts or station buildings survive; in others, all that remains is a suspiciously even footpath. The SNCF Society had published quite a few articles about these lines in different regions; it's worth being a member just for them. 

The network was established from the 1890s onwards, with the encouragement of a minister (and former railway engineer) called Charles Freycinet. The idea was to have these lines to run alongside public roads whenever possible- where the line started from the local main-line station, there would be street running to the outskirts of town, an example being the Chemin de Fer du Beaujolais at Villefranche-sur-Saone.

The lines played an important role during WW1, and had a brief Indian Summer in the 1920s, but by the mid-1930s, many had given up the ghost. After a revival of sorts in some areas during WW2, the decline continued until only a few vestiges remained, such as those you mentioned, along with the Chemin du Fer du Provence.

If you stumble upon a bar with the word 'Tacot' in its name, then there was probably such a line nearby, as this was the nickname generally used for them.

This is slghtly off-topic for a discussion of street running in Britain but perhaps interesting as a comparison. 

 

When I first discovered the sheer number of light railways and particularly roadside lines that once ran through particularly rural France I too tended to see any wide verge along a D road as a former railway. Close study of early Michelin and Taride maps showed that they weren't quite that ubiquitous but there were an awful lot ot them. I did though want to get a more definitive figure for public railways using roads in France as the numbers are fairly staggering.

 

The listings in  Baddeley's book The Continental Steam Tram are  a bit uncertain for lengths as he includes a number of lines that I know had just a little roadside running and ran mainly on their own rights of way. He does though very usefully denote the types of locos used, fully enclosed, motions enclosed or just ordinary tank locos. In general you can assume that a railway using fully or partly enclosed locos was, at least in part, a roadside tramway but not vice versa. A lot of the tramways, especially the later ones, such as the much missed metre gauge Tramways de Correze and the 600mm Pithiviers-Toury never used enclosed motions let alone fully enclosed tram locos.

 

It's a very difficult figure to establish but I have scans of Jean Arrivetz's* monumental post-war work on the subject which lists tramways, and light railways for every French Département, along with their gauge, for 1913 and 1921.  Unfortunately he doesn't differentiate between roadside tramways and town trams though it's usually possible to make a fair guess based on the form of propulsion. Horse then electric or shortish electric is usually a pretty good clue  to a town tram as is the  name of the operating company. 

Another really useful  source are  two editions of the Magazine des Tramways a Vapeur et des Secondaires from 1989 giving lists by départements of every local light railway at their peak in the 1920s, and also the mostly metre gauge railways that were part of the national network. It doesn't distinguish tramways from other light railways- the legal distinction between them for local railways was abandoned in 1913- but it does separate out d'Interet Local lines that carried both passenger and freight - a proper railway IMHO- and those that only carried passengers. Most of those were town and city trams though the category does also include systems like the Paris Metro, various funiculars and a few small passenger only steam tramways to hotels and resorts.

it's take  me a couple of days to put all these numbers into a spreadsheet but cranking the handle gave me a total, excluding town trams etc. of between 20174 and 21668 kms of local light railways of which 9375kms were roadside tramways (defined by more than two thirds of their route using public roads-usually the verge).

On top of that were some 2400 kms of not so light d'Interet General metre gauge including the Reseau Breton, Vivarais, Corsica, PO Correze etc.

 

Without comparing each individual railway across every source, which would be a monumental task, I think the totals for tramways derived from Arrivetz may be slightly inflated by a bit of double counting as some tramways were incorporated into wider Départemental systems or city tram networks but the overall total for French light railways are fairly close to those I've calculated, rather sadly, by totting up all the figures for closures. From all this it would be safe to say that France once had over 20 000kms of public light railways of which around 9 000kms or 45% involved significant roadside running.

 

* Jean Arrivetz, who was still with us until the end of 2015, was a senior manager in the Lyon transport authority but better known as one of the founders of the group that preserved the Vivarais and perhaps the father of the railway preservation movement in France. 

Edited February 18, 2018 by Pacific231G

[PhilH]

As the Wisbech and Upwell Tramway has been mentioned some may be interested in this video of it. Not only some street running but evocative of a seemingly much more relaxed way of life.

 

http://www.eafa.org.uk/catalogue/139644

[montyburns56]

"Hey mate. Do you wanna race?"

 

 

 

 

[The Stationmaster]

On 18/02/2018 at 10:42, PhilH said:

As the Wisbech and Upwell Tramway has been mentioned some may be interested in this video of it. Not only some street running but evocative of a seemingly much more relaxed way of life.

 

http://www.eafa.org.uk/catalogue/139644

And a genuine fly shunt - done with a long train it would almost appear although I suspect not the whole train!  Lovely bit of film and showing just how busy seasonal traffic was even in the 1950s.

 

Thanks Phil.

[Caledonian]

Missed this topic earlier and a little surprised that no one has mentioned the surprisingly complex Aberdeen Harbour Railway and its offshoots.

 

The docks layout is like a trident. The original big railway [the imaginatively named Aberdeen Railway - later incorporated in the Caledonian] had a terminus by the shaft end. Then there was the Great North of Scotland. Instead of going for an end-on connection with the Caley, it started off from a completely different site at Waterloo Quay, which was the left hand prong of the trident. As time passed commonsense saw an end-on connection and a joint station, but Waterloo survived as a goods line. Then the Harbour Board got involved and laid a street-running railway/tramway running round the docks and connecting the joint station goods yard [Guild Street] with Waterloo goods. Initially the wagons were hauled around the harbour by horses, but inevitably a couple of [0-4-2T] locomotives were introduced by the GNoS and lasted well into BR days.

 

So far so good. Then the Corporation got involved and had a collection of 0-4-0ST tanks hauling coal from the docks to the Gasworks, first across the harbour lines and some street-running through residential streets to the works. They also accessed the Waterloo Goods and Sandilands [later SAI] fertiliser works, although so far as I know this involved taking tank wagons into Waterloo Goods, which were then tripped across to Sandilands and back by the GNoSR/LNER/BR again involving street-running.

 

As if that wasn't enough the local of the harbour Electricity works got into the act. The power-station was situated to the south and coal was tripped to it through the streets by a couple of English Electric steeple cab battery electric locos.

 

All gone now, except as a plan to model it.

Edited April 18, 2020 by Caledonian
clarity

[montyburns56]

Someone has posted some great pics of the Aberdeen Harbour Railway in 1971 in his thread

 

 

[Pandora]

In SE London,  the Grove Street Tramway,  associated with the Deptford Wharf Yard , ran throuh public areas

 

http://www.olddeptfordhistory.com/2011/05/grove-street-catch-bus-or-train.html

[mike morley]

There used to be a line that picked its way around the back of Feltham town centre, across one end of the high street and into the ordnance factory beyond.  When we moved there in 1969 most of the stretch between the main line junction (a quarter of a mile or so west of the recently-defunct station level crossing) and the High Street crossing had been taken up in order to build the then new-ish Highfields estate.  Highfields Road has since been remodelled again (and possibly renamed?) but judging by its original route I'd say the railway probably ran along it.

The extremely wide and never gated crossing of the High Street - right across the heart of the crossroads at what until recently was the Red Lion on one corner and Barclays Bank on another - lingered for many years afterwards and was horrible, the track being on a concrete raft that was a few inches lower than the road, causing all kinds of odd slopes.  The concrete also had an extremely high flint-content, making it as slippery as glass after rain (which, because of the height differences, used to collect on it) and causing numerous accidents.

Once past the Red Lion the line entered what used to be the ordnance factory but in my day was called Browells Lane Trading Estate, a rabbit warren of narrow lanes, access roads, yards and other nooks and crannies, many of which still had track to be seen.  There has been a constant piecemeal development of the area ever since but it wouldnt surprise me in the least if there isnt still the odd forgotten corner with rails to be seen.

[roythebus]

Looking abroad, I visited Zwickau in eastern Germany about 10 years ago and was a bit surprised to find the main line railway running along the main road! And on a rail holiday in Switzerland about 20 years ago, one of the metre gauge lines up a mountain starts its journey as street running.