Carstairs House tramway diorama

[Dunalastair]

So what to choose for today's contribution to my 'diorama a day'? 

 

One of the earliest electric railways in the UK was the 1888 Carstairs House Tramway, running from the station to the house. Pickup was from elevated rails at the side of the track. Accounts differ as to what survived and for how long - it might have been used as a horse tramway into the 1930s.

 

https://www.facebook.com/226677430704972/posts/this-week-we-shall-be-looking-at-carstairs-house-and-the-nearby-roman-camp-of-ca/3249477018424983/

 

My 3D printed diorama, using 16.5mm track to represent 2' 6" gauge, featured the tram, the luggage van, the nicely rustic shed and the pickup rails, with an image of the house in the background. At least I thought it was the house - it looks rather different to that in the photograph above. Once again, an obscure (narrow gauge) line with little information available on which to base a model.

 

 

This was a static model, but would have been easy enough to motorise with a motor bogie.

Edited June 26, 2023 by Dunalastair

[Dunalastair]

On reflection, my backscene probably is Carstairs House - the map on the wiki page shows that the railway ran past the Kennels, the Mains (the home farm) and further outbuildings before reaching the ?back of the house proper.

 

 

As I recall, I based my model on a short account in a book about Lanarkshire tramways, but I cannot put my hands on my copy right now. There is also a mention in 'The Age of the Electric Train', as mentioned in this thread https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/150425-carstairs-house-tramway/

 

Edited June 26, 2023 by Dunalastair

[Michael Hodgson]

The position of the live rails at floor level on the model looks like a safety hazard for the passengers boarding/alighting. 

However it seems to be nearer the bottom of axlebox level in the pciture of protoytype

I don't suppose there is a record of voltage or whether the power would be isolated whilst the tram was at a station

[Jeremy Cumberland]

Are the side rails conductor rails? The original Volks Electric Railway used the two running rails (at 50V DC), and it looks to me that the side rails might be small fences, and nothing to do with the electricity supply. The photograph isn't clear enough to show what happens when the line crosses the road or track in the background. Even with electric railways in their infancy, I find it hard to imagine anyone coming up with the idea of axlebox-height conductor rails, whatever form of contact was used.

 

I do very much like the model, though.

Edited June 26, 2023 by Jeremy Cumberland

[Dunalastair]

Not many records it would seem, sadly. Legend has it that there was an electrocution, but other authorities reckon it was a heart attack. Yes, side conductor rails - I think. I seem to remember seeing image(s) with gap(s) - presumably the car coasted between conductors - and could have been (carefully) pushed if it stalled. Thankyou for the kind words about the model of a prototype which even for me must count as obscure.

[Michael Hodgson]

Definitely obscure !   But as this is a Grade A listed building i would expect more records in the national library or some such.  Google finds a few links... and it's even haunted !

I think it would have been impractical to use the running rails for traction.  You'd need to insulate them, which would presumably mean Mansell wheels as the axles and tyres would be metal, not to mention the current losses through the sleepers on a dreich day in Carstairs? 

 

But this page does seem to show you have indeed got the right building on the backscene even thought it's been renamed Monteith House and is now a nursing home - so what's the other building,  the intermediate farm place ?  A different elevation of the Big House ?  It doesn't look like the Station Hotel at the other end of the line.  The map shows another big building to the left of and slightly nearer the track than Carstairs House proper - perhaps a later extension in a completely different architectural style?

 

It also says you are right, they were live iron rectangular conductors on iron poles on special insulators, not fences.  No earth connection, so in theory you'd have to touch both live rails to get electrocuted.  400v hydro-electric with battery backup, and a speed of 35 mph - pretty advanced !

https://urbanglasgow.co.uk/carstairs-house-t4172.html

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

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

https://www.carehome.co.uk/carehome.cfm/searchazref/20006046MONA

https://randomscottishhistory.com/2018/05/19/carstairs-house-pp-1-4/

 

[Dunalastair]

Thankyou for those links. The early hydro scheme alone would make it an interesting piece of industrial history, even without the tramway. Apparently the power station went on to power a mill, even when the railway / tramway ceased electric operation. Accounts suggests that lasted until the 1960s, and the site has since been reused for a modern installation. Given the history, you might hope for images on the web, but the Canmore history pages seem to focus on the house with more than a hundred exterior and interior images. Though none I can see of the tramway. 

 

https://canmore.org.uk/site/181750/carstairs-house?display=collection&GROUPCATEGORY=5&per_page=103

 

I just dug out the Gillham book, but it only has a short paragraph on Carstairs (contents as per the previous RM thread) and no photographs. I must have a more thorough look for that Lanarkshire tramways book. Of course, these days Carstairs has a rather larger electric railway operation ...

 

[marc smith]

What an interesting little railway :) 
Nice diorama of it too. Let us know if you ever decide to motorise it - I'd like to see that running.

[Dunalastair]

I looked again for and found my copy of A W Brotchie's Lanarkshire's Trams. The account of the Carstairs Tramway runs from page 86 to 92. On page 86 there is a full page image of the car at its rustic shed, showing the side conductor gap where the line crossed the drive, and points for branches to the stables and boilerhouse. Page 88 shows the interior of the power house and page 89 an 1897 1:2500 OS map extract showing the track layout at the house. Page 90 has the image I linked in the original post, and page 91 the wiring diagram for the car. Finally page 92 has images of the track near the Mains farm, running through trees, and the transfer siding at the station, showing both SG and NG track.

 

There is a detailed description of the electrical generation and transmission arrangements, confirming that the contact conductors were positive and negative, 12" outside the rails, on insulators 10" above the sleepers (so my depiction is rather too high). In places there was a double conductor on one side. There was a single car, tested to 35mph, running at 20mph, built locally. It was 6' 1" long by 3' 7" wide and weighed 2 tons. One account mentions two parcel vans. As coal was carried for the boiler, there may also have been open wagon(s) - some 'bogies' apparently survived to be scrapped in about 1932 with the rails.

 

Now that I have confirmed the title, I can link the book here.

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lanarkshires-Trams-W-Brotchie/dp/0905069293