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"Big Four" Light Railways


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8 minutes ago, Welchester said:


The L&MVLR was 2’ 6”, not standard gauge.

But it did run standard gauge wagons...... so a sort of honorary standard gauge LR?

 

Andy G 

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A few more  southern examples are the Axminster and Lyme Regis Light Railway, the Bentley and Bordon Light railway, the Lee-on-Solent branch, and the North Devon and Cornwall Junction Light Railway (aka Torrington - Halwill Junction) - the first three all operated by the LSWR. Interestingly the last-mentioned actually doesn't technically qualify, as it was independent until nationalisation, despite being to all intents and purposes an SR branch.

Edited by Nick C
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1 hour ago, 31A said:

 

Yes, Elsenham and Thaxted was built as a Light Railway, as was Kelvedon and Tollesbury which also passed to the LNER.  Elsewhere in East Anglia the LNER had the Wisbech and Upwell Tramway which was a light railway in effect (although it pre-dated the Light Railways Act), and another LNER one that springs to mind was Fraserburgh & St. Combs (referred to in the other topic linked above).

 

Adding a little to 31A's list, the Kelvedon and Tollesbury light railway (opened in October 1904 and built under the Light Railways act) had 6 of the 9  passenger stock from the Wisbech and Upwell tramway transferred to it in 1928 when that line stopped passenger services.  That gave the line 4  4 wheeled coaches,  and the 2 balcony bogie coaches.  One went on to being in the Titfield Thunderbolt film of course, but apparently the line had been looked at as a possible location for the film as well.

J67/1 0-6-0 tanks were the branch loco for over 50 years, then Hunslet 204hp shunters ran freight at the end. 

Could be a good basic layout, very flat terrain (just one cutting and a bridge) with a small tank pulling a mixed train, a Wisbech and Upwell coach with a few trucks and a brake van. Very rustic! (Mind you that would be the only train...)

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10 minutes ago, Nick C said:

it was independent until nationalisation,


Didn’t the SR and Devon County Council own the vast majority of the shares? Certainly DCC was a major subscriber, making it a really rare example in England of a public authority investing in a public railway (many authorities owned or funded ‘industrials’ and street tramways).

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2 hours ago, uax6 said:

But it did run standard gauge wagons...... so a sort of honorary standard gauge LR?

 

Andy G 

 

After a fashion.

 

12 minutes ago, eastglosmog said:

To be pedantic, it had some very short standard gauge sidings, serviced by its transporter wagons!

 

Indeed

 

39852811845_4a4f952402_b.jpg

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2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:


Didn’t the SR and Devon County Council own the vast majority of the shares? Certainly DCC was a major subscriber, making it a really rare example in England of a public authority investing in a public railway (many authorities owned or funded ‘industrials’ and street tramways).

Interesting - the sources I looked just said that it needed financial support from the local authorities, but didn't say who the actual owners were.

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I’m out and about right now, so can’t find all the details, but the NRM catalogue entry summary says:

 

Incorporated 28th August 1914 under The Light Railways Acts of 1896 and 1912. H.M. Treasury and Devon County Council each had the right to appoint a Director so long as they each held £15,000 Share Capital.

The company passed to the British Transport Commission under the Transport Act 1947


I think I found more by ferreting around in The London Gazette or Hansard. I thin it also gets a mention in Leo Amery’s diaries - he was the SR’s appointee director on all sorts of boards, Railway air services, various bus companies etc.

 

The scheme was partly about unlocking a very poor and backward area by increasing trade - very like the schemes in Ireland.

 

 

 

Edited by Nearholmer
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From Scotland, the following:

Maidens & Dunure Light Railway, serving the Ayrshire coast. Later operated by the G&SWR, LMS and (in very truncated form, to serve Butlins Heads of Ayr) BR;

Wick & Lybster Light Railway - operated by the Highland and absorbed into the LMS;

Dornoch Light Railway - as above.

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The Selby, Cawood and Wistow Light Railway —NER/LNER. The "electric autocars" that Rails are doing once ran on it…

 

Was the Culm Valley legally a light railway? It had all the attributes of one, but predated the legislation by quite a few years…

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CV was a LR, using the LR provisions of the Regulation of Railways Act 1868, rather than the 1896 Act, IIRC. The Swindon & Highworth was the same, and both were engineered by Arthur Cadlick Pain, who also engineered The Southwold, The Lyme Regis, and others. He was well on with the low-cost, colonial stye, railway before Colonel Stephens.

 

 

 

 

Edited by Nearholmer
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19 minutes ago, D9020 Nimbus said:

The Selby, Cawood and Wistow Light Railway —NER/LNER. The "electric autocars" that Rails are doing once ran on it…

 

Was the Culm Valley legally a light railway? It had all the attributes of one, but predated the legislation by quite a few years…

Easingwold?

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Never grouped, and not nationalised either, IIRC, like the Derwent Valley. It must have been built under the 1868 provisions, although it did eventually get an 1896-style LRO in 1928.

Edited by Nearholmer
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25 minutes ago, doilum said:

Easingwold?

 

19 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Never grouped, and not nationalised either, IIRC, like the Derwent Valley. It must have been built under the 1868 provisions, although it did eventually get an 1896-style LRO in 1928.

 

Oddly I was reading about this one yesterday. Easingwold was independent for its entire life, despite only being about 2 miles long. I’ve never quite understood why this one managed to escape both grouping and separate purchase by the LNER, or why it was exempt from nationalisation. However, I suppose it might have sometimes resembled a big 4 line due to only having one station apart from the junction at Alne and being operated, in later years, with locos hired from LNER and BR (not sure how long their original locos that they owned themselves kept going).

 

I haven’t yet investigated the old route of the Easingwold line but one of the old railway cottages now has a very long garden, courtesy of the former trackbed: https://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/9169625.railway-history-of-longest-garden/

 

On Google Earth much of the trackbed looks quite complete.

Edited by 009 micro modeller
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1 hour ago, Wickham Green too said:

The Garstang & Knott End


Was it actually a LR - I’m pretty sure that it became one at some stage, but I can’t find confirmation anywhere (I gave all my LR books away).

 

 

Edited by Nearholmer
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Well, the G&K-E appears to be another oddity: authorised by numerous Acts of Parliament, the draft for the final one (1908) of which includes these words:

 

To provide that the said railways may be constructed and worked as light railways, and to apply the provisions or such of the provisions of the Regulation of Railways Act, 1868, or the Light Railways Act, 1896, so far as may be necessary as to the crossing of roads on the level limiting the speed of engines and otherwise in such manner as the Bill may prescribe.

 

To me, this seems ambiguous, and on strict reading seems to apply only to the extensions covered by the final Act, which would have created a railway operated to "full blown" provisions over most of its length, but with a LR sprig at either end (I think), which seems very peculiar - maybe that was how things worked, or maybe in practice it was applied to the whole amalgamated and extended raillway. No wonder Wikipedia steers clear of it!

 

Anyway, it did get grouped into the LMS, so we'll include it here.

 

 

 

 

Edited by Nearholmer
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14 hours ago, eastglosmog said:

The Totton, Hythe and Fawley, built by the SR opened 1925.

 

Ah, now there's an exception. I was going to say that most of these light railways were built or absorbed by the pre-grouping companies, usually before the Great War. And @009 micro modeller beat me to the Burton & Ashby Light Railway. I've also just reminded myself that that notable Southern branch line, the Lynton & Barnstaple, was a Proper Railway, being authorised by Act of Parliament shortly before the Light Railways Act was passed.

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Another Big Four electric LR was the Grimsby and Immingham, which was one of a confusing plethora of LRs that the GCR built in the area. 

 

So the LMS and LNER had an electric one each; the SR just missed with the Surrey Heights; what about the GWR? Did they have an electric LR tucked away somewhere?

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