"Big Four" Light Railways

[Andy Kirkham]

56 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

There was spare wagons to be had?

IIRC it was because following the fall of France, the coal export trade to the continent had ceased.

[lanchester]

Slightly off topic, but Nearholmer mentioned wayleaves - does anyone know how long these lasted? I suppose in the case of most waggonways etc that later became the routes of 'proper' railways, the wayleaves were bought out under authority of Act of Parliament, but did any wayleaves last through grouping, or even to nationalisation? I'm thinking some very early stuff like the Stanhope & Tyne, or the Tanfield Branch of the Brandling Junction (both later NER): the latter was built, presumably under wayleaves, in the 1720s, I think, and lasted to the 1960s - but what was the legal basis for it by then?

[009 micro modeller]

Taking a slightly different angle, were there any independent light railways that regularly operated over sections of track technically owned by big 4 companies? I’m wondering if any of the short (but independently run, sometimes electrified) hospital lines might fit this description.

[96701]

How about doing the search the other way round from the National Archive?

 

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/browse/r/r/C11107

[Nearholmer]

Excellent suggestion!

 

Somewhere, I have a small book published donkeys years ago by the Railway and Canal historical Society (IIRC), listing them all, but on-line is far easier than finding that.

 

Of course, many weren't built, many more draft LROs were published, many were multiply amended etc.

[Compound2632]

The Leadhills & Wanlockhead leaps out from the first page - worked by the Caledonian from the start and passing to the LMS. The highest standard gauge line in Britain. Now the site of a charming little 2 ft gauge line.

 

The Lyme Regis branch - has that been mentioned?

Edited August 6, 2021 by Compound2632

[Andy Kirkham]

1 hour ago, 96701 said:

How about doing the search the other way round from the National Archive?

 

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/browse/r/r/C11107

There's inspiration there for a few "might have been" layouts:

 

Confining myself to the West Country and Wales:

 

Didcot and Watlington Light Railway

Lizard Light Railway

Penzance Newlyn and West Cornwall Light Railway

Highbridge, Wedmore and Cheddar Light Railway

Wotton-under-Edge Light Railway

Bridgwater, Stowey and Stogursey Light Railway

Gower Light Railway 

Padstow Bedruthen and Mawgan Light Railway,

Witney Burford and Andoversford Light Railway

Llandilo and Lampeter Light Railway,

Crewkerne South Petherton and Martock

Malvern (Funicular) Light Railway

 

All foredoomed to a lifetime in receivership, no doubt.

 

Edited August 6, 2021 by Andy Kirkham

[Andy Kirkham]

Not forgetting the Blagdon and Pensford Light Railway, which would have had a station named Nempnett Thrubwell.

[The Lurker]

On 04/08/2021 at 00:17, 009 micro modeller said:

This is an interesting one. Was the Tovil goods line actually built under an LRO in the end?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headcorn_and_Maidstone_Junction_Light_Railway

No, the Tovil goods line was built round about 1880, long before the Colonel's iteration of the Loose Valley Railway had been proposed.

 

https://www.kentrail.org.uk/tovil_goods_siding.htm

 

 

[Wickham Green too]

On 06/08/2021 at 16:16, 009 micro modeller said:

Taking a slightly different angle, were there any independent light railways that regularly operated over sections of track technically owned by big 4 companies? I’m wondering if any of the short (but independently run, sometimes electrified) hospital lines might fit this description.

Depends on your definition of 'sections of track' ..... The Hellingly Hospital line certainly operated into the station goods yard under tram wires - presumably S.R. or B.R. property.

[Nearholmer]

Wasn’t the goods yard on the other side of the LBSCR, well beyond the wires? I thought there was simply an exchange facility on the ‘Down’ side. Hellingly goods yard loading gauge is I think the one that still survives as a way mark on the Cuckoo Trail bike path, I’ve been by it a few times. The station building is a house now I think, but it’s really difficult to see from the path because of massive growth of shrubbery.

Edited August 18, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Dava]

The St Edwards Hospital Tramway connected with the North Staffs Railway near Cheddleton at Leekbrook Junction on the now preserved Churnet Valley Railway. 
 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Edwards_Hospital_tramway

 

Dava

[Wickham Green too]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

Wasn’t the goods yard on the other side of the LBSCR, well beyond the wires? I thought there was simply an exchange facility on the ‘Down’ side. ......

Yes there was a yard of three sidings on the 'up' side - with access from the public road - but the 'down' side exchange facility was anything but simple. The Hospital Tramway approached from the east and joined a loop off the 'main' line facing south ..... the tram loco couldn't, of course, join the main line but had to run into a headshunt and then back into the loop where the exchange platform stood. There was also a loop off the loop to allow the loco to run round ( look like the trolley wire ran down the middle between the lines ). Furthermore, there was a siding within the ( first ) loop which ended at the exchange platform and had its own headshunt alongside the 'main' line - difficult to suss out what that siding could have been used for.

[Nearholmer]

41 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

urthermore, there was a siding within the ( first ) loop which ended at the exchange platform and had its own headshunt alongside the 'main' line - difficult to suss out what that siding could have been used for.

 

My reading is that was the exchange siding for coal wagons, accessible from both LBSCR and ESCC, arranged so that it was shunted by an LBSCR loco at the country end of its goods train, as was the station goods yard proper, but I'm not totally sure that the electric loco trolley pole could have remained on the wire while shunting it.

 

Another thing I've never understood is how/whether the London end connection from the primary loop was used - maybe an Up Goods could set wagons back through it, or collect wagons. Frustratingly, the Sectional Appendix for 1935, which I happen to have, says nothing at all about Hellingly that I can find, and it would take an archival search to find out exactly which bits of track belonged to whom.

 

I suspect that the track layout may have owed something to the pre-electric use of the tramway during construction of the hospital, and that maybe there were originally three loops forming an exchange, one having been truncated to fit the passenger exchange platform in.

[Wickham Green too]

24 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

......, but I'm not totally sure that the electric loco trolley pole could have remained on the wire while shunting it. ....

The track plan in the Wild Swan book shows where the trolley wire supports were - on the outside of the loop past the exchange platform. If the contact wire was central to the loop, the loco/tramcar's pole could have reached it from either side - BUT the 'mystery' siding was too far away at its 'up' end where the loop veered away.

[Nearholmer]

48 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

BUT the 'mystery' siding was too far away at its 'up' end where the loop veered away.

 

If my surmise about it being for exchange purposes is right, one hopes that the LBSCR didn't shove the wagons too far along! The wire may, of course, have been well off-centr of the loop track, easing the problem.

 

We shall probably never know for sure.

 

And, BTW, was it actually a Light Railway (I suspect not), and even if it was, it was certainly never part of The Big Four?

[JohnR]

The North Sunderland always struck me as neither fish nor fowl.

 

It had an act of parliament, and although it was considered to be converted to a Light Railway, it doesnt seem to have been - although it was built very much as a light railway, and the Railway Inspectorate seemed to view it as such on opening. The NER, who operated the line, passed an act in 1898  which included an extension to Bamburgh, as well as official conversion to a Light Railway, although yet again, there doesnt seem to be any record of that having actually happened.

 

Having said that, it had all the attributes of the traditional light railway, including an eclectic mix of rolling stock, and actually being perennially in debt. 

[ejstubbs]

15 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

The Hospital Tramway approached from the east and joined a loop off the 'main' line facing south

 

From the west, surely?

 

[Nearholmer]

That’s not Hellingly.

[clachnaharry]

The St Combs light railway appears to have escaped a mention.

 

Opened around 1906 by the GNSR and surviving until 1965 it was a 6 mile branch from Fraserburgh. It was unfenced, so locomotives required a cowcatcher. It was operated by F4 tanks in LNER days and these were superseded by Ivatt 2MTs in BR days - I think these were unique in that they were the only tender engines fitted with cowcachers, including on the tender, in the UK. The 2MTs were superseded by Cravens DMUs in the late 50's and goods traffic ceased then. The DMU's were not fitted with cowcatchers, so I'm not sure how they got around that regulation. Perhaps it was in the definition of locomotive?

Edited August 19, 2021 by clachnaharry

[ejstubbs]

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

That’s not Hellingly.

 

Good point.  I saw the post from Dava and headed off down his Wikipedia link without checking that it was referring to the same railway as the posts surrounding it.  Apologies.  As you were.

 

(Off topic, because it was a private railway, but the Bangour Village Hospital, also a psychiatric hospital, near what is now Livingston in West Lothian had a 1¾ mile private railway branching off the Edinburgh & Bathgate Railway.  I was somewhat bemused by this debate reported in Hansard regarding the proposed second reading of the bill to allow the NBR to operate services along the branch, amongst other things.  Sadly, I'm not convinced that the standard of debate in the Commons has improved much if at all since  that time.)

Edited August 19, 2021 by ejstubbs

[Fat Controller]

51 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

That’s not Hellingly.

I'd say it looks like the one between Leek and Cheddleton, at Leekbrook. It was called St. Edwards. If you enlarge the map, 'Staffordshire County Council' is printed below 'County Mental Hospital', whilst the river in the top left is marked 'River Churnet'.

[ejstubbs]

It's the map on the Wiki page linked in Dava's post that I mistakenly assumed related to the other posts either side of it.  As I have already explained.

Edited August 19, 2021 by ejstubbs

[Dava]

6 hours ago, ejstubbs said:

 

From the west, surely?

 

That is the Staffordshire St Edwards Hospital tramway I mentioned, map from Wikipedia 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Edwards_Hospital_tramway

 

Dava

[Harlequin]

Another GWR operated light railway that I don't think has been mentioned in this thread yet (I searched, but I don't fully trust the lack of results):

 

The Cleobury Mortimer and Ditton Priors Light Railway.

 

Authorised under the Light Railways Act in 1901. Opened to passengers in 1908. Absorbed by the GWR at grouping.