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French engravings of Welsh Narrow Gauge


NicShilton

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Hi

 

My partner came across this article (published in 1881 in the course of her work.

 

http://cnum.cnam.fr/CGI/fpage.cgi?4KY28.16/232/100/432/0/0

 

It has two engravings of narrow gauge in Wales, the first is easy to identify, Tan y Bwlch on the Ffestiniog. The other looks more obscure, featuring a locomotive called Lilliput on a line name as the Petit Bourg. Can anybody identify the second?

 

(Use the arrows on top right to navigate)

 

many thanks

 

Nic

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Hi

 

My partner came across this article (published in 1881 in the course of her work.

 

http://cnum.cnam.fr/CGI/fpage.cgi?4KY28.16/232/100/432/0/0

 

It has two engravings of narrow gauge in Wales, the first is easy to identify, Tan y Bwlch on the Ffestiniog. The other looks more obscure, featuring a locomotive called Lilliput on a line name as the Petit Bourg. Can anybody identify the second?

 

(Use the arrows on top right to navigate)

 

many thanks

 

Nic

 

Petit Bourg had something to do with decauville I think.

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Now that's bothering me.  I'm sure I've read an article about these engravings, quite recently, but can't find where I saw it!

 

In the hope that there are better filing systems out there, I think it was probably a recent issue of The Narrow Gauge - but I may be wrong.

 

[EDIT]

 

Ok, found it.  The article is entitled "Do Not Always Believe What You See", by John Townsend, and appears in "The Narrow Gauge" no. 229 (Summer 2014).  The author compares the engraving of "Lilliput" in "La Nature" (1880/1881, as linked above) with similar illustrations in a catalogue for "Decauville's Patent Portable Railway" published by Decauville's London agent, von Glenn (1889).  Similarly the Tan-y-Bwlch engraving from "La Nature" is seen to derive from an original photograph and is compared to other engravings that appear in an edition of "Scrivener's Monthly" (1879) and another Decauville catalogue (1890).

 

What is fascinating is how very similar images show differences that must point to multiple engravings from a common source.

 

...

 

"LILLIPUT" was the first locomotive associated the Decauville portable track system.  Given that Decauville later built locomotives at their plant in Petit Bourg, it is identified as being their first locomotive (notional works number Dcv 1/1878), but "LILLIPUT" was actually built by Corpet Louvret (CL 242/1878) to 500mm gauge, for a pleasure railway in connection with the 1878 Exposition Universelle in the Jardin d'Acclimatation, Paris (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jardin_d%27Acclimatation_railway).  It was later sold (date unknown) to a Mr van der Heem in Holland, via the firm of Kortmann & Cie., for another park railway.

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