Ben Nevis rack railway?

[locoholic]

Is anyone aware of any plans in Victorian/Edwardian times for a railway up Ben Nevis, following the success of the Snowdon line and Swiss lines?

 

Did they get as far as suggesting a route?

[Sandpiper]

From "The West Highland Railway" by John Thomas.

 

"In 1893 Charles Foreman considered building a railway up Ben Nevis. When the West Highland was opened, a London company took up the challenge and planned to construct a line starting near the West Highland station and, following the pony track for the first 2000 ft, reach the summit by striking east round the shoulder of the mountain.  The line was to be 4 3/4 miles long and have a maximum gradient of 1 in 2.62 for 600 yards......The scheme was revived several times between 1894 and 1913, but nothing came of it".

 

Given what a dull trudge the pony track up The Ben is, a railway wouldn't be such a bad idea. There are lots of really interesting ways of getting to the top but the pony path isn't one of them.

 

(edited for typos)

Edited May 30, 2018 by Sandpiper

[locoholic]

From "The West Highland Railway" by John Thomas.

 

"In 1893 Charles Foreman considered building a railway up Ben Nevis. When the West Highland was opened, a London company took up the challenge and planned to construct a line starting near the West Highland station and, following the pony track for the first 2000 ft, reach the summit by striking east round the shoulder of the mountain.  The line was to be 4 3/4 miles long and have a maximum gradient of 1 in 2.62 for 600 yards......The scheme was revived several times between 1894 and 1913, but nothing came of it".

 

Given what a dull trudge the pony track up The Ben is, a railway wouldn't be such a bad idea. There are lots of really interesting ways of getting to the top but the pony path isn't one of them.

 

(edited for typos)

Indeed. I did the dull trudge today, and on the way back down I would have paid hundreds for a train ride back down!

[009 micro modeller]

Was this to have been built in the same way as Snowdon, i.e. Swiss 80cm gauge Abt rack equipment?

[The Johnster]

It may have been a dodgier prospect commercially than the Snowdon rack; the weather is much worse here, the mountain nigh on a thousand feet higher, and the number of days on which operation was possible would have been more limited, so the costs would have been a good bit higher, but I have to agree with the comments about the pony track!   

[Nearholmer]

I’ll have to hunt it out, but somewhere I’ve got a detailed prospectus/proposal for a rack line up a mountain in Scotland from the 1990s, rather tha5 the 1890s ....... but don’t ask me which mountain, until I find it!

[keefer]

possibly Cairn Gorm? : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairngorm_Mountain_Railway

 

opened in 2001 but planned from 1993 (http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN00176/SN00176.pdf)

[locoholic]

I’ll have to hunt it out, but somewhere I’ve got a detailed prospectus/proposal for a rack line up a mountain in Scotland from the 1990s, rather tha5 the 1890s ....... but don’t ask me which mountain, until I find it!

I think that would be Ben Wyvis, near Dingwall, if I recall correctly.

[Wickham Green]

There was a fascinating railway system BELOW the Ben - but as it's off topic I'll not mention the Lochaber Narrow Gauge.

[009 micro modeller]

There was a fascinating railway system BELOW the Ben - but as it's off topic I'll not mention the Lochaber Narrow Gauge.

On the subject of unusual 'might have been' type proposals I recall reading (possibly in Narrow Gauge World 'from the archives' which is based on old NGRS reports) about a plan to create a new 15 inch line on part of the Lochaber trackbed. It would be interesting to know if this was ever a serious or properly worked out idea though.

[Wickham Green]

On the subject of unusual 'might have been' type proposals I recall reading (possibly in Narrow Gauge World 'from the archives' which is based on old NGRS reports) about a plan to create a new 15 inch line on part of the Lochaber trackbed. It would be interesting to know if this was ever a serious or properly worked out idea though.

Would be interesting to know how access was proposed - most of the line was pretty remote from public roads !

[009 micro modeller]

Would be interesting to know how access was proposed - most of the line was pretty remote from public roads !

Unfortunately I don't know any more other than that it was suggested (and don't know how far it got!). I think not using the whole route provides a clue as that would suggest access along the trackbed. Wikipedia mentions calls for reopening but the referenced article link is dead.

[Wickham Green]

Unfortunately I don't know any more other than that it was suggested (and don't know how far it got!). I think not using the whole route provides a clue as that would suggest access along the trackbed. Wikipedia mentions calls for reopening but the referenced article link is dead.

It's remarkably difficult following the formation on on-line Ordnance Survey maps as bits seem to have disappeared and others are parallel to parallel roads and get very confused ......... BUT the bottom end of the line would have been out of the question as the site's still in industrial use - there is, though, a 'new' ski centre in Gleann Domhanaidh which could have been intended to provided access.

[009 micro modeller]

I think that would be Ben Wyvis, near Dingwall, if I recall correctly.

I've found this: http://www.highland-instinct.co.uk/skiresorts/history/benwyvis/

 

Interesting to read the plans for through running on BR and electrification - presumably this was planned to be to a high standard. The approach to the electrification seems needlessly complex though - why not either use diesel locos throughout or negotiate to electrify on the BR line (à la Tyne and Wear Metro) so as to use electric traction throughout. In terms of not being too environmentally intrusive I would also question whether AC overhead to mainline standards is the best choice - especially given that its stated main advantage seems to be compatibility with electrification that may or may not later be installed on the Kyle line. As an enthusiast and modeller though I love the idea and the details of working practices, I just wonder how serious an idea it ever was (particularly since most of the negotiations are described in the future tense, i.e. they are important but haven't actually been negotiated yet).

I seem to remember the Snowdon railcars (now scrapped) were unable to work in multiple as they could not synchronise properly - is this ever a problem with other railcar type rack vehicles?

[Zomboid]

Given what a dull trudge the pony track up The Ben is, a railway wouldn't be such a bad idea. There are lots of really interesting ways of getting to the top but the pony path isn't one of them.

 

(edited for typos)

Same as Snowdon then, the Llanberis path is the dullest way available to get up that one, too.

[009 micro modeller]

https://images-eu.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61U6QWyqvaL._SR600%2C315_PIWhiteStrip%2CBottomLeft%2C0%2C35_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

 

From this picture does it look as though they would have used some readily available/off the peg continental stock? I had a look but couldn't find anything exactly like it.

[Nearholmer]

My impression at the time was that it was a sort of giant pipe-dream by a railway enthusiast or two, not greatly different from the sort of thing that goes on a lot on RMWeb, the “imagineering” of a railway, not supported by hard-headed business-case analysis.

 

Overhead electrification of mountain railways, as an aside, is ordinary stuff; most probably wouldn’t have been built if it hadn’t been devised. I guess that “visual intrusion” was less of an issue thirty years ago; it certainly was 120 years ago!

 

Rack railway cars on many lines aren’t coupled together, so two or more power units operating together in a train would need to maintain the same speed, within very tight tolerances, or it would cease to be one train, and, assuming that control was wired, rather than wireless, the ‘jumper cables’ would get broken.

 

Three-phase AC traction is particularly good for this application, because the motor has a near-ideal characteristic for the job and because the speed of a directly-fed motor is locked tightly to the frequency of the supply, which is why it was used from a very early date, and why a few mountain railways retain it ....... although I just checked, and the Jungfraubahn, which I would look to as the ‘gold standard’, ceased using directly-fed motors on new trains some 25 years ago. They now use power-electronic converter fed motors, which is what one would expect.

 

With modern power electronic drives, and tight closed-loop control, I would imagine that multiple traction units in a train would be feasible from any electrical power supply, including on-board diesel powered alternators (“diesel electric”); it’s very similar to the sort of thing done in production-lines, for instance.

 

But, I think it would be somewhat harder to implement successfully with hydraulic transmission from a Diesel engine, and nigh-on impossible with a purely mechanical transmission, even with modern control techniques (others may know better though!).

 

According to Wikipedia, the Snowdon cars were diesel-electric, with power electronic drives to (presumably three-phase) induction motors, with the engines run at constant speed, which is exactly what i’d expect. They were run as pairs, so presumably no serious synchronisation problems at the outset. The speed control systems seem not to have lasted very well, causing their withdrawal after less than ten years. With no facts to hand, I would speculate that the ‘tech’ got the better of an organisation not well-versed in electrical matters, or that the system attempted to maintain set-speed by tightly controlling engine-revolutions, which would be a bngger to get to work properly (again, others may know better).

Edited May 31, 2018 by Nearholmer

[009 micro modeller]

The point about visual intrusion was purely based on the prospectus itself, where they open by saying that they'd like to make sure the line doesn't negatively impact the environment too much. The picture in my later post shows an odd pantograph design for a modern 25kv AC line.

[009 micro modeller]

I now have a copy of the booklet having purchased it on Amazon. Despite the implausibility of certain bits it does seem well researched. The confusing aspect is the idea that through running would take place to Garve as well, despite the junction only facing Dingwall. From a modelling point of view, the interesting bit for me is the Strathpeffer spur. This is described in the book as using the old station at Strathpeffer, but, instead of running to Dingwall, reaching the site of Achterneed station (which they propose to reopen) via a new route, leaving the old trackbed and crossing the river Peffe with a rack section in the final 300 metres. I can photograph the map but not sure I can post here due to copyright. This would seem an interesting subject for modelling based on how Strathpeffer station would look (an advantage being that the existing buildings could be modelled to give it a basis in reality) although this bit would be adhesion only so people might not 'get' the layout. Being away from the main mountain section this is also one of the sections on which they were going to haul the EMUs with diesel locos.

[009 micro modeller]

The main inspiration for the drawings of the railcar sets seems to be this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%8CSD_Class_EMU_29.0

 

Not sure why they chose these (which are metre gauge) rather than the similar but visually different standard gauge Rigi ones.

[locoholic]

From "The West Highland Railway" by John Thomas.

 

"In 1893 Charles Foreman considered building a railway up Ben Nevis. When the West Highland was opened, a London company took up the challenge and planned to construct a line starting near the West Highland station and, following the pony track for the first 2000 ft, reach the summit by striking east round the shoulder of the mountain.  The line was to be 4 3/4 miles long and have a maximum gradient of 1 in 2.62 for 600 yards......The scheme was revived several times between 1894 and 1913, but nothing came of it".

 

Given what a dull trudge the pony track up The Ben is, a railway wouldn't be such a bad idea. There are lots of really interesting ways of getting to the top but the pony path isn't one of them.

 

(edited for typos)

A maximum gradient of 1 in 2.62 is over twiçe as steep as the Snowdon line, and is too steep for the Abt rack system. It would be interesting to know which system they were proposing to use, and whether it would have been steam or electric.

[009 micro modeller]

A maximum gradient of 1 in 2.62 is over twiçe as steep as the Snowdon line, and is too steep for the Abt rack system. It would be interesting to know which system they were proposing to use, and whether it would have been steam or electric.

The Pilatusbahn uses the Locher rack, with the teeth on the sides rather than top of the rack rail, so they can't jump the rack as on other systems. It is also electrified but is the same gauge as Snowdon so I wonder if the Ben Nevis line would have ended up like the Pilatusbahn.