Railways in road-building

[tractionman]

I've just been reading about the Liverpool - East Lancashire Road built in the early thirties, and spotted a photograph showing what look to be standard and narrow gauge railways being used for the construction work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Which comes from

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20071229070048/http://www.lancashire.gov.uk/environment/historichighways/eastlancs/index.asp

 

and a book of the time published to mark the road's opening. (out of copyright now I assume...?).

 

An amazing bit of civil engineering for the pre-motorway age in Britain, but it was the very intense use of railways in road-building that caught my eye.

 

I guess this was widespread in that period, would be curious to know more about the railway system and how it connected with the mainline, assuming it did, and what stock ran on it.

 

Cheers,

 

Keith

[Fat Controller]

Even in the 1960s, T W Ward listed narrow-gauge stock for sale or hire for large construction projects; the only time I saw any working was during works on Llanstephan castle. Pre-war, most large new housing developments would have a connection from the nearest main-line railway to bring in bricks and cement to a storage area, whence they'd be distributed by narrow-gauge trains.

[roythebus]

The standard gauge line on the left of the road appears to be used by the crane thingy that straddles the road, maybe with the opposite side running on a single rail.

[daveyb]

The IRS has some pictures of narrow gauge railways being used in the construction of the M1 viaducts around Sheffield. I'm on my phone but I'll try to dig a link out later.

[nightstar.train]

Narrow gauge Railways used to be enormously popular for construction as there simply wasn't the heavy machinery we have today. No big trucks or lorries. And much less palletisation and standardised loads. Now you have things like telehandlers that shift pallets of bricks around in a jiffy. They arrive on a forty ton lorry and the handler lifts them off and drops them down right where they need to be. In the thirties that would've largely been done by hand from railway trucks to piles to narrow gauge trucks to more piles where they're needed.

 

Large projects like dams or harbours would've used full size railways for moving materials around like rock and earth. Again because there were no large tipper trucks.

[russ p]

Wasn't there some wide gauge railway involved with the construction of the Tinsley viaduct

[runs as required]

In the late 1960/early1970s I worked in Tanzania on World Bank funded agricultural secondary boarding schools. It made sense to site a number along the line of the Tazara railway that was funded by the Chinese to 3' 6" gauge to export Zambia copper via Dar es Salaam.

The project was implemented almost exactly like a C19 railway by men and wheelbarrows so forward parties would clear land to plant food crops and build infrastructure like housing and clinics along the line of rail ready for the teeming manpower to pass through as the work progressed.

 

"Our" schools were able to save an awful lot of effort by taking over the planted 'shambas' (farms) left behind in the wake of the railway builders.

 

I flew a light plane to get around the projects and it was fascinating when tracking along the line of rail to compare the blue of the railway navvy gangs with - a mile or two away to the north and west - the competing US funded road project with bright yellow masses of Caterpillar road building equipment. From the air it was very noticeable how much more orange latterite earth got disturbed by the machinery,

I'd love to go back and look at what has endured. Although I read that the railway is virtually moribund, I'd imagine the parallel road has become a deathtrap of speeding vehicles threading through ribbon development, pedestrian and animals.

dh

[Pacific231G]

I don't know if this was the first use of temporary railways for road building but starting in 1859 it must be one of the earliest. In 1854 the Chemin de Fer du Midi opened its main line between Bordeaux and Bayonne in S.W. France running through a region about the size of East Anglia known as the Great Moors of Gascogny. At the time this was mostly open marshy scrub with very poor sandy soil whose people lived off a combination of small scale intensive farming and sheep that grazed on the open moors.The moors were criss crossed with rough tracks but there were very few if any good roads. 

 

The railway made the region more accessible and the government of Napoleon III was determined to make it "productive". To open it up for development, the Midi railway was contracted in 1857 to build around 500 kms of new agricultural roads across the moors from  twelve of its stations. These were constructed by laying temporary standard gauge track along their routes to import the stone and gravel needed to build proper roads as these weren't available locally. Twelve locomotives, 100 wagons and 100 kms of track were used for the project and once each road was built the track used in its building was moved to the next. The roads were completed in 1861 and though the Midi had been given the right to retain and operate the railways as roadside tramways it had declined to take this up. The government also forced the local communities to sell off their common moorland to be drained and cultivated but the only thing that could be grown commercially on the poor moorland soil was the native maritime pine tree. The result was that every scrap of open moorland, was soon covered in trees and without grazing land for their sheep the way of life of the local people collapsed.

 

The irony was that within about twenty years the "new" roads were proving completely inadequate for the growing traffic of heavy carts carrying logs and cut timber to the railheads. Rather than trying to improve the roads the answer this time was to build a series of permanent standard gauge light railways.  Many of these ran roughly parallel with or even alongside the roads but they were always on their own rights of way rather than being the roadside tramways so widely used used elsewhere in France.

Edited June 23, 2017 by Pacific231G

[caradoc]

'Oxfordshire Railways in Old Pictures' (Lawrence Waters, Alan Sutton 1989) has photos of narrow gauge railways used in the Oxford area; At Culham in 1927 and on the Oxford Northern bypass in 1931-34. I grew up within earshot of the bypass but had no idea railways were used to build it until I obtained this book. 

[Pacific231G]

In the late 1960/early1970s I worked in Tanzania on World Bank funded agricultural secondary boarding schools. It made sense to site a number along the line of the Tazara railway that was funded by the Chinese to 3' 6" gauge to export Zambia copper via Dar es Salaam.

The project was implemented almost exactly like a C19 railway by men and wheelbarrows so forward parties would clear land to plant food crops and build infrastructure like housing and clinics along the line of rail ready for the teeming manpower to pass through as the work progressed.

 

"Our" schools were able to save an awful lot of effort by taking over the planted 'shambas' (farms) left behind in the wake of the railway builders.

 

I flew a light plane to get around the projects and it was fascinating when tracking along the line of rail to compare the blue of the railway navvy gangs with - a mile or two away to the north and west - the competing US funded road project with bright yellow masses of Caterpillar road building equipment. From the air it was very noticeable how much more orange latterite earth got disturbed by the machinery,

I'd love to go back and look at what has endured. Although I read that the railway is virtually moribund, I'd imagine the parallel road has become a deathtrap of speeding vehicles threading through ribbon development, pedestrian and animals.

dh

Slightly off-topic but what sort of aircraft did you fly? I'm interested because when I learnt to fly (purely for pleasure) in the early 1990s one of the other students was a veterinarian working on a rabies eradication programme also I think in Tanzania. They had a Piper Cub that was very little used and she'd realised that by learning to fly it she could get around the scattered communities they were working with in a fraction of the time it was taking using a LandRover. 

Edited June 24, 2017 by Pacific231G

[PhilJ W]

The LCC Becontree housing estate built in the 1920's-30's had quite an extensive standard gauge system operational during construction. There were exchange sidings on the up side of Chadwell Heath station and extended as far south from there as Ripple Road. It even required a bridge to carry the works trains over the LT&S line.

[runs as required]

Slightly off-topic but what sort of aircraft did you fly? I'm interested because when I learnt to fly (purely for pleasure) in the early 1990s one of the other students was a vetinarian working on a rabies eradication programme also I think in Tanzania. They had a Piper Cub that was very little used and she'd realised that by learning to fly it she could get around the scattered communities they were working with in a fraction of the time it was taking using a LandRover. 

In Tanzania I worked for Norman and Dawbarn an interestingly eccentric engineering/architecture practice that made its name in the 1930s as consultants to the Southern Railway* on aviation - eg Gatwick - and co founders of Airwork and Danair (remember them?).

We'd hire a Cessna 182 out of Dar airport to get around our projects; navigation was so simple: just fly along the EAR railway lines to places like Tabora and Morogoro (then follow the road down to Mbeya for the Tazara schools). The tricky bit was 'fuel management', remembering to order cans of aviation fuel to be delivered to my education sites for the return leg back to base. This could be nail biting - getting airborn from rough grass strips (justified to the client as animal pasture) at around 4,000ft in the late afternoon, then exhilaratingly attempting agonisingly slow climbs over 'passes' around rapidly rising cu-nim cloud. 

 

I learnt to fly in Malawi on a Piper Cherokee 7QYWC (Whisky Charlie), still remembered very fondly.

 

I do remember the Dar Piper Cub - very different because it was excitingly a tail wheeler and you had to 'pick a cloud', Spitfire style, then hold the aeroplane straight on the rudder until you could lift the tail wheel.

(We'd better talk more by PM)

 

dh

 

Ed *see 'Backtrack' magazine for Jan 2016 and March 2016 for two part article on 'Southern Airways'  R.A.S. Hennessey's survey of the SR's association with the new age of air travel.

Edited June 23, 2017 by runs as required

[The Lurker]

The LCC Becontree housing estate built in the 1920's-30's had quite an extensive standard gauge system operational during construction. There were exchange sidings on the up side of Chadwell Heath station and extended as far south from there as Ripple Road. It even required a bridge to carry the works trains over the LT&S line.

it would be interesting to learn whether the extensive development around Sidcup in the same time frame also had a rail system.I shall have a dig around to see if I can find anything

[Nick Holliday]

There's a nice short piece on Becontree here https://www.lbbd.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Infosheet16-Becontree-Estate.pdf with a photo of a Manning Wardle 0-4-0ST in action. 

A very similar set up was used constructing the St Helier estate in South London, the next major LCC scheme, and I think the contractor Wills worked on both projects, and brought his steam locos with him.  An extensive layout was created, with sidings connecting to the ex-LBSCR line between West Croydon and Wimbledon (now Croydon Tramlink) a little south of Mitcham station.  There is a lot of detail of this at http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/s/st.helier_estate_railway/

[Nearholmer]

Railways, especially narrow gauge, were very ordinary bits of plant on road building in the 20s and 30s. Plenty of examples in Britain, and a few preserved 2ft gauge locos originated or were used on such contracts, but the really big users were the Germans on autobahn construction. There is a very good album called 'Feldbahnen Im Dritten Reich' which covers this period, and includes a photo of himself, standing in a contractor's wagon on an autobahn site, addressing the construction crew.

 

Even as recently as the 1980s, the Federation of Civil Engineering Contractors rate book included standard day rates for portable track, locos, wagons etc.

 

Kevin

Edited June 23, 2017 by Nearholmer

[Pacific231G]

Railways, especially narrow gauge, were very ordinary bits of plant on road building in the 20s and 30s. Plenty of examples in Britain, and a few preserved 2ft gauge locos originated or were used on such contracts, but the really big users were the Germans on autobahn construction. There is a very good album called 'Feldbahnen Im Dritten Reich' which covers this period, and includes a photo of himself, standing in a contractor's wagon on an autobahn site, addressing the construction crew.

 

Even as recently as the 1980s, the Federation of Civil Engineering Contractors rate book included standard day rates for portable track, locos, wagons etc.

 

Kevin

Shame they didn't shunt him over an unbuilt bridge. It might have saved the world a great deal of grief

 

It's interesting to look through the the Decauville catalogue for "things you can do with a portable railway". My favourite was for explorers going up rivers  to carry a couple of bogies and enough track aboard their boats to portage past rapids etc. by laying a couple of panels in front of the boat, pushing it forward then taking the track panels from behind and moving them to the front and repeating that until they could refloat the boat. Shade of Fitzcarraldo but it's supposed to be something they actually supplied to a client with what success I don't know. 

[Nearholmer]

Yes, "accidentally" included in a bridge foundation would have served equally well.

 

Some of Decauville illustrations strain credibility: the locos being transported by elephant; and, the divers using a railway on the seabed, which would make an excellent dioramas/aquarium project.

[Bernard Lamb]

The Churchill Barriers in Orkney carried roads as a secondary use and there was a narrow gauge line laid to aid their construction.

Bernard

[phil_sutters]

Parts of the M5 were built on flyash from South Wales. To get to site, a spur was built through the ruins of Highbridge S&DJR, Dad took three photos of trains at the station. Something of a salt in the wounds experience.

 

Edited June 23, 2017 by phil_sutters

[PatB]

The LCC Becontree housing estate built in the 1920's-30's had quite an extensive standard gauge system operational during construction. There were exchange sidings on the up side of Chadwell Heath station and extended as far south from there as Ripple Road. It even required a bridge to carry the works trains over the LT&S line.

Such a set of exchange sidings could make an interesting model with plenty of operating potential. It could also provide an opportunity for a narrow gauge line with a justifiably intensive service and a bit different from a Welsh slate quarry.

 

You could also justify the shiny, new look of unweathered Superquick semis .

[rockershovel]

Narrow gauge railways are still used in tunnelling work. Not as much, because the larger road tunnels and the station enlargements for metro projects tend to use wheeled plant, but they are still used for water and rail tunnels

[stadman]

Narrow gauge railways are still used in tunnelling work. Not as much, because the larger road tunnels and the station enlargements for metro projects tend to use wheeled plant, but they are still used for water and rail tunnels

 

Few years ago observed narrow gauge tunnelling under the Exmouth Line and river EXE for a gas (I think) main. Saw one Clayton loco and a personal carrier.

Devon County Council also had a fleet of 6 Kerr Stuart Wren's at their Wilmminstone Quarry near Tavistock.

[Pacific231G]

Narrow gauge railways are still used in tunnelling work. Not as much, because the larger road tunnels and the station enlargements for metro projects tend to use wheeled plant, but they are still used for water and rail tunnels

Sometime between 1983-85 I made a film for the local BBC South Today programme about the relining of the Southampton Tunnel. This involved the intensive use of a narrow gauge railway running from the works access between the tunnel mouth and Southampton station and the worksite within the tunnel. At the time they had shut the down line and erected a plastic barrier between the south side that they were working on and the north side through which trains were running (very slowly!) in both directions. At some point the whole operation was reversed with the up line shut but at the time we filmed it the contractors were working AFAIR about 150-200m from the tunnel mouth.

I thought at the time that something like this would make quite a good model with narrow gauge operation at the "base camp" and main line trains running behind it with both lines disappearing into the tunnel mouth. I don't know if this sort of operation was ever carried out at other tunnels but Southampton tunnel suffered from being built above a canal tunnel that was never opened but had been laid wit puddled clay that trapped water in it. The railway tunnel itself had been built cut and cover with brick vaulting but was being relined with modern concrete segments. 

 

My recollection is that the track layout at the base consisted of a run round loop and a couple of sidings and a loop at the site in the tunnel with I think an extension forward to enable materials, concrete segments mostly, to be delivered and the bricks and rubble to be loaded onto wagons and taken out. I think the rolling stock consisted of flat carriers for the concrete segments and skips for removal of waste with battery electric locos to work them. Locos and stock were all bright yellow. I also seem to recall that the railway equipment was standard stuff used by the tunnel contractors and taken from job to job.

[RJS1977]

McAlpine's used to have a large fleet of steam locomotives used on construction projects. I believe the one now at Fawley is the only survivor, but I may be wrong.

 

 

I've often wondered what would have happened if the railways had refused to carry all the materials required for road-building projects given the adverse effect road transport has had on so much of our rail network. (Though of course up until the 1960s, the railways legally couldn't refuse to carry anything).

[Nearholmer]

231G

 

I remember that job being done. They used a couple of Ruston LBTor very similar locos.

 

K