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Was there is a connection between Swansea High Street and Swansea Victoria


firstgreatwestern
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The Mumbles was never a tramway, it always described itself as a railway and was incorporated as such, the first passenger carrying railway... in the world (Clarkson voice). It was never intented as anything but a railway, using horse power initially, and served local businesses and a colliery I believe.  A  branch/extension ran up the Clyne valley, eventually absorbed into the LNWR route.  The 'trams' were double deck electric trains, unsuitable for street tram operations; Swansea had street trams as well, but these were a different operation entirely.  They came later than the Mumbles Railway and their demise preceded it's.

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25 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

The Mumbles was never a tramway, it always described itself as a railway and was incorporated as such, the first passenger carrying railway... in the world (Clarkson voice). It was never intented as anything but a railway, using horse power initially, and served local businesses and a colliery I believe.  A  branch/extension ran up the Clyne valley, eventually absorbed into the LNWR route.  The 'trams' were double deck electric trains, unsuitable for street tram operations; Swansea had street trams as well, but these were a different operation entirely.  They came later than the Mumbles Railway and their demise preceded it's.

Perhaps more accurately (pedantically?) the first to carry fare-paying passengers (from March 1807), some of the preceding four railways (the 'Mumbles' was the fifth to be authorised by its own Act of Parliament) may well have carried people from time to time, who knows?

 

Good to see someone mention the Clyne Branch. I stumbled - literally! - across it many years ago now when walking in the area and was surprised to find very little mention of it in any of the histories of the line, even some of the locals seem to have been unaware of it.

 

 

Mumbles train at Singleton.jpg

Edited by RailWest
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3 hours ago, The Johnster said:

 The 'trams' were double deck electric trains, unsuitable for street tram operations;

Sorry but I have to disagree.

They were every bit a tramcar and apart from the overall size were very similar in construction & operation to contemporary tramcars on street systems.

The previous steam hauled rolling stock also consisted of 'tramcars', from tramcar builders such as Milnes & Starbuck and almost identical, complete with open upper decks and some with toastrack seating, to those plying the streets of the UK with a steam tram engine towing them, whereas the Mumbles Railway used more powerful "proper" steam engines to tow several at a time.

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But the Oystermouth Railway also carried goods traffic, which most tramways did not, and as has been said it was officially a railway according to its Acts of Parliament. Agreed in later years the passenger traffic was carried in large tramcars. It is a great pity that one which was saved was then heavily vandalised. And I think I am right in saying that the Mumbles Pier extension was only ever operated by tramcars. Incidentally, because it was a railway authorised by a number of Acts of Parliament it needed a further Act to permit its closure: 29 July 1959. And there cannot have been many examples of "xxx Railway and Pier Company"

I am sure our health and safety "experts" would these days have had a heart attack about the locomotive hauled tramcars!

I have never been sure if/when the Clyne Valley branch was taken over by the LNWR. Anyone have any details?

Back to the original question (almost), the 1913 RCH diagram shows the line continuing beyond the passenger station and joining the Swansea Harbour Trust lines at the same point as the "Swansea & Mumbles", just to the west of the GWR viaduct.

Ii had not dawned on me until I looked at the diagram that the goods depot to the immediate south of Victoria was GWR, accessed by a backsunt from the line down from the junction north of High Street. As far as one can tell from the diagram it would be necessary for GWR trains to draw forward onto the LNWR to do this backshunt.

So was there a LNWR goods depot immediately adjacent to Victoria? Neither the RCH diagram nor Cooke shows one yet I am sure there have been suggestions there was.

Incidentally, Cooke does not show the LNWR link from its line to the GWR line in the form mentioned above. Was this corrected in a later edition? Or is the RCH diagram wrong?

Jonathan

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4 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

But the Oystermouth Railway also carried goods traffic,

Nobody's denying that, so did the Kinver Light Railway which was considered to be part of the Black Country tramways and all the passenger traffic was in tramcars

 

I have referred to it as the Mumbles Railway but to say the rolling stock, especially in later years was not tramcars is denying fact.

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>>>I have never been sure if/when the Clyne Valley branch was taken over by the LNWR....

 

It is a long time now since I've (a) been there and (b) read about it, but AFAIK the Clyne Valley branch was only ever part of the Mumbles railway. The L&NWR line of course did go up the Clyne Valley from about Blackpill, pretty close to the Mumbles' branch, but did not actually utilise any part of the latter AFAIK.

 

Long ago, when she was a child, a friend of my wife lived in the one of the rows of terraced houses that lined the south side of the main road west of Victoria station and backed onto the high-level goods line. Whenever she stepped out of her front door she had to look both ways very quickly, as the Mumbles track ran just a few yards in front of the houses! But in those days such things were just accepted as part of 'normal life' there :-)

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13 hours ago, melmerby said:

Sorry but I have to disagree.

They were every bit a tramcar and apart from the overall size were very similar in construction & operation to contemporary tramcars on street systems.

The previous steam hauled rolling stock also consisted of 'tramcars', from tramcar builders such as Milnes & Starbuck and almost identical, complete with open upper decks and some with toastrack seating, to those plying the streets of the UK with a steam tram engine towing them, whereas the Mumbles Railway used more powerful "proper" steam engines to tow several at a time.

Exactly so - as can be seen here from a couple of contemporaneous postcards in my collection.  I think that in both cases the 'train' contains rather more 'tramcars' that would be described as 'several'  -

 

1211729236_scan0001copy.jpg.84368a91f26342ab29a40d4c4831d55a.jpg

 

682118620_scan0003copy.jpg.323ba193b8ee643be1546123373e376c.jpg

 

 

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I wasn't intending to say that it wasn't run as a tramway, albeit with a limited goods service. What I was pointing out was that its legal basis was that of a railway authorised by Act of Parliament. Town tramways were usually authorised in a completely different way.

Any thanks RailWest. That was what I thought but I had seen suggestions from time to time otherwise. When I was a student in Swansea in the later 1960s I did once explore the Clyne valley area and remember coming across some "remains" including if I remember some kind of timber gantry, not on the LNWR line. But that was a long time ago and my memory may be wrong.

By the way, part of the link between the lines on the east of the river and those on the west was a lifting bridge. There is a well known print of a broad gauge train which fell into the river when the bridge was open. That must have been the GWR line I assume (at least later, originally Swansea and Neath, an offshoot of the Vale of Neath). There was also a parallel SHT bridge.

Jonathan

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4 hours ago, Fat Controller said:

What is considered to be the defining feature of a tramway system? 

Depends whether you are considering it's legal status or how it operates.

I think the distiction is blurred somewhat.

 

Quite clearly the Mumbles was legally a railway but operated it's passenger service more like a tramway.

But it also had proper goods services.

The Kinver Light Railway got it's authorisation from the Light Railway Commisioners (not the Tramways Act 1870) but always was operated as a tramway and had occasional through services from as far as Birmingham, however even it's limited goods business was carried out in tramway vehicles or towed behind a passenger car.

Edited by melmerby
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6 hours ago, corneliuslundie said:

But the Oystermouth Railway also carried goods traffic, which most tramways did not, and as has been said it was officially a railway according to its Acts of Parliament. Agreed in later years the passenger traffic was carried in large tramcars. It is a great pity that one which was saved was then heavily vandalised. And I think I am right in saying that the Mumbles Pier extension was only ever operated by tramcars. Incidentally, because it was a railway authorised by a number of Acts of Parliament it needed a further Act to permit its closure: 29 July 1959. And there cannot have been many examples of "xxx Railway and Pier Company"

I am sure our health and safety "experts" would these days have had a heart attack about the locomotive hauled tramcars!

I have never been sure if/when the Clyne Valley branch was taken over by the LNWR. Anyone have any details?

Back to the original question (almost), the 1913 RCH diagram shows the line continuing beyond the passenger station and joining the Swansea Harbour Trust lines at the same point as the "Swansea & Mumbles", just to the west of the GWR viaduct.

Ii had not dawned on me until I looked at the diagram that the goods depot to the immediate south of Victoria was GWR, accessed by a backsunt from the line down from the junction north of High Street. As far as one can tell from the diagram it would be necessary for GWR trains to draw forward onto the LNWR to do this backshunt.

So was there a LNWR goods depot immediately adjacent to Victoria? Neither the RCH diagram nor Cooke shows one yet I am sure there have been suggestions there was.

Incidentally, Cooke does not show the LNWR link from its line to the GWR line in the form mentioned above. Was this corrected in a later edition? Or is the RCH diagram wrong?

Jonathan

See what you can make out from this plan - sadly I can't get any more of it on the scanner bed :-(

The GWR yard seems to come off the low-level lines. The high-level lines are labelled GWR. There is a L&NWR yard shown on the shore front between the South Dock and the Tidal Basin.

Scan-1406.jpg

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What's the date for that old plan? It looks quite early.

Here is a view of the first Victoria Station which might be the one on the plan:

Railway-Photo-Swansea-Victoria-Station-c

 

This is the Swansea area from the MR distance diagrams 1911 edition:

swansea1.jpg.1bd1dcab23c59e927e128b9bc5a77ca6.jpg

 

Edited by melmerby
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55 minutes ago, melmerby said:

What's the date for that old plan? It looks quite early.

 

Good question. It's marked "Third Edition" but the first edition seems to have been late 1850s! The volumes published by Peter Kay, from which I think your Swansea Area Enlargement is taken, use sheets labelled fourth to eighth edition but with various dates from 1911 to 1923 (in the Birmingham, Bristol, and South Wales volume) so I assume different sheets were revised at different times.

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42 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Good question. It's marked "Third Edition" but the first edition seems to have been late 1850s! The volumes published by Peter Kay, from which I think your Swansea Area Enlargement is taken, use sheets labelled fourth to eighth edition but with various dates from 1911 to 1923 (in the Birmingham, Bristol, and South Wales volume) so I assume different sheets were revised at different times.

Oops! Wrong plan

I spotted that the 59A was 1902 but I meant the old plan of Swansea posted by Chris (Railwest)

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1 hour ago, melmerby said:

Oops! Wrong plan

I spotted that the 59A was 1902 but I meant the old plan of Swansea posted by Chris (Railwest)

Sorry, but I don't know the date of that plan (yet).

 

EDIT - apparently 1903.

 

However I do know that this photo was taken in Oct 1881 and shows the older Wind Street Jcn signal-box, replaced by a GWR one circa-1898 :-)

Wind Street Jcn box.jpg

Edited by RailWest
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Thanks for those maps which give a lot more detail than Cooke or the RCH diagram and explain the connections. So the GWR would not have had to trespass on the LNWR to reach its sidings.

But they seem to confirm that the only LNWR yard was the other side of the dock. 

But also at that date there was definitely a connection out the back of Victoria station, as I suggested. That may partly explain why the structures across the back of the station were rather basic, as they must have been added after the link was closed - presumably before 1911 as it is not on the Midland plan.

And the answer to the original question is that the GWR could be reached from the LNWR via the dock lines. But the routes would have missed both passenger stations, and the GWR East Dock station over the river as well.

Jonathan

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