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What abandoned British lines would have been good tourist railroads?


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3 hours ago, Suzie said:

Heads of the valleys, over the Crumlin viaduct.

 

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That is one I would pay to ride on.

 

Rumour I heard somewhere was that the reason that line closed was that any "foreigners" (unauthorised use of engineering resources) at Swindon had been routinely booked to repairing that viaduct, so the accounts showed it to be much more costly to maintain than was in fact the case.  

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My ideal preserved railway would have a connection to the national network, share a station with the national network but with its own separate platform(s), have sufficient space for depot and stabling facilities, and run to somewhere of interest. Being in a pleasant part of the country would help too. There are of course several railways which meet those criteria, but a couple of suggestions would be Kingham to Chipping Norton and Gleneagles to Crieff. 

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On 15/07/2021 at 14:08, geoffers said:

Barnstaple to Ilfracombe. There was an attempt to preserve it in the 1970s but it failed then. Would have been difficult to work as a preserved line given the gradient into and out of Ilfracombe.

With eight level crossings in and around Braunton imagine the traffic jams it would cause!

 

cheers

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Had it lasted a bit longer the Southwold Railway would have made a prime tourist attraction.

 

https://www.southwoldrailway.co.uk/

 

The coaching stock might have needed some improvement however.  Here's Dr. Ian Allen's recollections in his book "55 Years of East Anglian Steam": "I can still remember my bitter disappointment at a journey in one of the tramway-type coaches.  Passengers had to sit with their backs to the window, gazing at the passenger sitting opposite and owing to the narrow gauge, there was very little room for one's knees."   

 

Chris Turnbull

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Using the railroad theme of the posting one narrow gauge line that was railroad like was that built from Masham North Yorkshire up Closterdale for the construction of two reservoirs with timber trestle viaducts 

which closed in 1926. Always have thought that if enough of its trackbed had survived it would have been an English rival to the narrow gauge lines in North Wales.. 

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2 hours ago, Butler Henderson said:

Using the railroad theme of the posting one narrow gauge line that was railroad like was that built from Masham North Yorkshire up Closterdale for the construction of two reservoirs with timber trestle viaducts 

which closed in 1926. Always have thought that if enough of its trackbed had survived it would have been an English rival to the narrow gauge lines in North Wales.. 

That's a new one on me.

But I see there has been a model of that rather attractive loco that looks like an abbreviated Russell.

https://www.fourdees.co.uk/masham

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14 hours ago, adb968008 said:

Leicester Central -Rugby , preservation doesnt have a mainline city centre station, and the bridge at Rugby was fantastic.

 

 


by that logic, of Mainline city station, and assuming money for maintenance costs wouldn’t be an issue, Snow Hill to Wolverhampton Low  Level would have been quite the preserved railway!

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4 minutes ago, Clearwater said:


by that logic, of Mainline city station, and assuming money for maintenance costs wouldn’t be an issue, Snow Hill to Wolverhampton Low  Level would have been quite the preserved railway!

The scenery would be quite different though.

:D

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13 hours ago, Clearwater said:


by that logic, of Mainline city station, and assuming money for maintenance costs wouldn’t be an issue, Snow Hill to Wolverhampton Low  Level would have been quite the preserved railway!

Pity there ain't the old line-side industry still there, that would've been more interesting, 'look what we used to have', Patent Shaft, and  Bilston Steel-Works - just think!!:sungum:

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On 19/07/2021 at 15:59, Reorte said:

Across Dartmoor to Princetown would be a good one (built on in some awkward places though).

 

Wasn’t there at one stage a very vague scheme to do this in 3’ 6” gauge, involving the Garratt that was at the Plym Valley Railway and is now at Summerlee?

 

I think my choice would have to be the Lochaber narrow gauge line, although I think this has actually been looked into a couple of times, both as original 3ft gauge and as a 15” line over part of the route.

 

I also think the Buntingford branch or the Welwyn to Hertford line could have been good - the latter is perhaps not that spectacular but has some stretches of nice countryside, and would have provided the opportunity to create a GNR-focused heritage line. If the section within Welwyn Garden City itself hadn’t been completely obliterated by later developments (even though this stub was actually the last section to close) then some of the space currently taken up by little-used sidings at the mainline station could have been used to create an adjacent station for a heritage line. On the opposite side of the ECML the entire Hatfield to Dunstable line, along with the section to Leighton Buzzard and a retained connection with the narrow gauge line there would have been fun, though having grown up regularly using the Ayot Green Way trail on part of the trackbed I realise this would have been quite different if the railway was still in place.

 

I like the current Llanberis Lake Railway but I think I’d also have really enjoyed riding on a preserved 4ft gauge Padarn Railway all the way to the coast. The current line as a loop (also using part of the LNWR trackbed on the other side) would have been another interesting variation.

 

Finally, I think I would also suggest the  Brill/Wotton Tramway. More conventional but in roughly the same neck of the woods was the Aylesbury High Street branch, which I think was the first railway to be considered a branch line.

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On 17/07/2021 at 09:12, owentherail said:

Also Barnstaple to Halwill jn along Taw then torridge valley 

Didn't one of the bridges over the River Torridge have a strict weight limit, so the section between Torrington, and Halwill was run under LRO conditions, restricting trains to 2 coaches maximum hauled by either an O2, or an Ivatt 2 tank after the O2's were withdrawn??:sungum: 

 

Edited by bike2steam
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On 17/07/2021 at 09:19, snitchthebudgie said:

 

Why not the entire IOW rail system?  Lots of different scenery and places to go.

That nearly happened, or what was left of it in 1965, there was a little indecision over what to do just before the final idea for electrification. 10 redundant Standard 2 tanks from the North West, had been sidelined for such a task had the final decision gone the right way - but it didn't, if only!!! Look under the class in BRdatabase, and see those down as allocated to Eastleigh, although with the exception of 84014 which was to be a trial run for adaption to Island running, it was just 'paper-transfers'.

84014.jpg

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On 15/07/2021 at 00:50, Murican said:

One of my personal pet projects is to review abandoned railroads in the United States, and speculate on what they might have been like had they survived as tourist or heritage railways.

 

In your opinions, what are some abandoned British lines that would have made decent, if not superb, heritage railways.

 

All of them. 

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1 hour ago, bike2steam said:

That nearly happened, or what was left of it in 1965, there was a little indecision over what to do just before the final idea for electrification. 10 redundant Standard 2 tanks from the North West, had been sidelined for such a task had the final decision gone the right way - but it didn't, if only!!! Look under the class in BRdatabase, and see those down as allocated to Eastleigh, although with the exception of 84014 which was to be a trial run for adaption to Island running, it was just 'paper-transfers'.

84014.jpg

 

I did read about this, I think it involved lowering the cabs and there was a similar idea also suggested (slightly later) involving re-geared class 08s. I’m not sure what coaches were to have been used. Would the Standards have kept running past 1968 (in the style of the VoR) if this had gone ahead?

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The Devil’s Dyke branch in Sussex.

Only around 3.5 miles from its junction from Aldrington (just west of Hove) on the Brighton - Portsmouth line, it had some 1in40 gradients which would have made quite interesting working with heritage steam. On arrival at the terminus, the passenger would enjoy magnificent views, northerly  across the Sussex Weald and to the west on a clear day, the Isle of Wight, some 45 miles away, is easily seen. 

Oh, .... and there’s a good pub there! Pie, pint and an E4, what could be wrong with that?

Edited by Right Away
grammar
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In the 1970s there was a plan to relay the Lyme Regis branch as a 15 inch gauge line, and I believe it got as far as materials being delivered on site, but it fell through for lack of finance.  

 

That would have made an excellent tourist railway.

 

[edit] Some more information here https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/mrw_forums/axe-lyme-valley-railway-t3468.html

Edited by Andy Kirkham
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10 hours ago, Andy Kirkham said:

In the 1970s there was a plan to relay the Lyme Regis branch as a 15 inch gauge line, and I believe it got as far as materials being delivered on site, but it fell through for lack of finance.  

 

That would have made an excellent tourist railway.

 

[edit] Some more information here https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/mrw_forums/axe-lyme-valley-railway-t3468.html

 

The other interesting bit, mentioned in that thread, was the proposed high-speed link, worked by an articulated unit (the unit itself was built).

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11 hours ago, Right Away said:

The Devil’s Dyke branch in Sussex.

Only around 3.5 miles from its junction from Aldrington (just west of Hove) on the Brighton - Portsmouth line, it had some 1in40 gradients which would have made quite interesting working with heritage steam. On arrival at the terminus, the passenger would enjoy magnificent views, northerly  across the Sussex Weald and to the west on a clear day, the Isle of Wight, some 45 miles away, is easily seen. 

Oh, .... and there’s a good pub there! Pie, pint and an E4, what could be wrong with that?

 

And the Devil’s Dyke funicular to go with it: http://www.hows.org.uk/personal/rail/dd.htm

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