Creating a light railway backstory?

[Tom Burnham]

1 hour ago, AY Mod said:

 

Newport and Four Ashes Light Railway caught my eye; simply because there had been discussions about a Four Ashes to Brewood L&NWR branch which I mused, many years ago, that could have extended to Newport. Would you have any pointers for reference material for that Newport and Four Ashes Light Railway please?

I did an article about it for the Tenterden Terrier (K&ESR house magazine) in Summer 2005.  You can download a PDF at kesr.org.uk/terrier/

[KeithMacdonald]

22 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

 

This is a truly obscure one, and I can’t imagine what traffic it was meant to carry.

 

Some say:

The whole saga of the Bourne Valley Railway became world-famous, and begate a Hollywood franchise. It's coming-into-existence, and the choice of route, was filmed as The Bourne Identity. It's incredible initial success, despite all the odds stacked against it, was The Bourne Supremacy. The sad years, with the arch-villian Dr Beeching waving the axe, was The Bourne Ultimatum. It's miraculous survival as a Heritage Railway was The Bourne Legacy.

[AY Mod]

2 hours ago, Tom Burnham said:

I did an article about it for the Tenterden Terrier (K&ESR house magazine) in Summer 2005.  You can download a PDF at kesr.org.uk/terrier/

 

That's a fascinating piece Tom, especially having a good knowledge of the topography having grown up a short distance from the route. I can't foresee that it would have ever been viable but surprised it didn't move forward given some of the backers involved. The area would never manage to fill a bus, let alone a train - they didn't leave the villages much!

[Nearholmer]

Cracking piece of detailed research.

 

[Hando]

6 hours ago, AY Mod said:

 

Newport and Four Ashes Light Railway caught my eye; simply because there had been discussions about a Four Ashes to Brewood L&NWR branch which I mused, many years ago, that could have extended to Newport. Would you have any pointers for reference material for that Newport and Four Ashes Light Railway please?

Hi Andy,

The plans are catalogued on the National Archives' "Discovery" website here: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/results/r?_q=newport+and+four+ashes+light+railway, and are shown to be at the Shropshire Archives as well: https://www.shropshirearchives.org.uk/collections/search?s=newport+and+four+ashes+light+railway&qa[keyword_reference_type]=0&qa[title]=&qa[person]=&qa[place]=&qa[subject]=&qa[format]=&qa[identifier]=&qa[date_from]=&qa[date_to]=&cbav=2&cbadvsearchquery=

Copies can be ordered online, and I expect the process is similar to what I've used before for the Derbyshire Record Office, and should be fairly straightforward if you want to access them that way.

 

Hope you find this useful.

[NZRedBaron]

Mine runs between two fictitious towns; Market Trenholme, a market town (naturally), and the small fishing and farming village of Jarlshaven on the north Norfolk coast; it was technically a subsidiary of the Eastern Counties Railway, later the Great Eastern Railway; aside from agriculture and fishing, by the early 1900's a large part of the traffic in the area was manufacturing and boat-building, especially during the Great War, when alongside various war materiel, the harbour facilities at Jarlshaven were expanded by the RN to be the homeport for a flotilla of gunboats, and they also established a small seaplane base.

 

Edited October 25, 2023 by NZRedBaron

[corneliuslundie]

Many years ago my son and I thought about a fictional twig off the Mid Suffolk Light to Pixie Green - a real place.

Re the Tanat Valley, I recently read a piece which commented that it seems to have been laid out to miss any centres of population. Also the quarrying industry it was to serve at Llangynog died just about the time it arrived. Both useful features for any proposed fictional line.

Not what the OP is looking for, but the Vale of Rheidol Railway gained authorisation for an extension from Aberystwyth to Aberaeron. The gradients would have been "interesting" to say the least.

And how about a Lincolnshire line from Mavis Enderby to Old Bolingbroke? Then they could get together! (real places not far apart)

Jonathan

[TrevorP1]

On 24/10/2023 at 04:17, DCB said:

You could end up with a whole imaginary world if you are not careful, like Sodor or Hogwarts.    I have done a lot of thinking about a line on the Isle of Skye from Kyleakin up to the North but never worked out what traffic it would carry.    My WR layout has a terminus at Ugleigh  in the Uggle Valley,  Famous for the Ugleigh Dog Show and of course for their Carnival Queen.    The main traffic comes from the Ugleigh Generic Company  which makes all sorts of components for the Generic industry but the line was promoted as a through route and never got any further than the Rose and Crown pub half way between Ugleigh St Agnes and Ugleigh St Claire on the grounds that the finance director absconded to Albania with the company's funds.   The Station was built as a temporary structure and arranged as a through station though the line ended there and the Generics factory was subsequently built next to the station in 1915 by the Military due to the need for secrecy. and an unfortunate lapse in map reading as they believed it was on the coast.   My line was absorbed by the GWR but it could have stayed a light railway...

 

There's alway the Isle of Raasay Railway. I had a quick look when we were up there a couple of years ago but the weather conditions made lunch at Raasay House and a visit to the gin distillery far more attractive propositions!

[CKPR]

Staying in Cambrian territory, the Bishops Castle Rly.  originally intended to carry on from Lydham Heath to  Montgomery (or thereabouts) and I think this proposal has previously been discussed as the basis for a model.

[whart57]

On 23/10/2023 at 10:57, Nick C said:

My thoughts so far are:

 

• A small independant line built under a light railway order, just about hanging on on the verge of bankruptcy, having never achieved it's aim as the money to build it ran out, leaving it terminating somewher in the middle of nowhere several miles short of it's intended destination. Likely to either close completely, or be swallowed up by it's neighbour before too long...
• Track layout to be a basic loop-and-two-sidings on an SMS layout-in-a-box board (same footprint as Auckland Wharf to go in the same place above my desk when in use)
• Stock to be an assortment of second-hand cast-offs - a Terrier, a Rapido Manning Wardle when that comes out, a couple of Hattons 4 or 6 wheelers and an ex-LSWR bogie brake third (the now-defunct GRA models kit, bought several years ago on a whim), with a couple of ancient wagons of their own and a few big company wagons bringing stuff in.

 

What I'm not sure of is location - It'll be somewhere in the south as that's where I'm familiar with, but there's not really any sensible locations here in Hampshire that didn't actually have a line, and would be suitable - so I'm wondering whether a fictional location might be better? 

 

Any suggestions?

 

Here at Horsham club we have started a layout based on a Colonel Stephens line. You can follow progress on our blog - https://www.rmweb.co.uk/blogs/blog/2640-chesworth-horsham-mrcs-00-finescale-project/

 

Our backstory is completely fictitious but to give it some foundation we have re-imagined the history of Horsham, the name Chesworth comes from a farm and manor house just south of the town. That approach sets the location, and our line is imagined to make a junction with the LBSCR mainline at Gatwick (the Racecourse station, not the Airport). Buildings are local examples and the general landscaping is the Sussex Weald. We are going for K&ESR style locos and stock but as others have pointed out, other prototypes are available.

 

The Colonel Stephens empire contains two examples you might like to consider as hooks to hang your story on. The Shropshire and Montgomeryshire was a failed mainline that was supposed to connect Stoke on Trent with North Wales. Only the bit between Shrewsbury and Llanymynech was built and it closed in the 1880s. Stephens revived it as a Light Railway thirty years later. Light railway trains had their own terminus at Shrewsbury Abbey so your mini layout could be an urban location. Imagine a Railway Mania era line connecting Southampton to, say, Bristol. It builds a temporary terminus in Southampton before it goes belly up. When the light railway revival happens decades later this temporary terminus becomes the Southampton end. Being a cramped location the engine sheds and other space chomping paraphernalia are elsewhere leaving you to provide a small platform and a couple of sidings in a backstreet location of a city.

 

The best example of a "where the money ran out" terminus has to be Wingham Canterbury Road on the East Kent Railway. The EKR was intended to serve the Kent coalfield, and indeed one short part of it did do so successfully up until the last collieries in Kent closed in the 1980s. The Kent coalfield turned out to be much smaller than the speculators imagined and the bulk of the line headed out to serve collieries that turned out to have little coal in them. One of those was at Wingham, and having got that far Stephens decided to strike out for Canterbury, and the traffic he hoped to get from there. The money ran out in a field the far side of Wingham.

 

Canterbury Road is a challenge for a model as there is no run round and the short trains - one coach and a couple of wagons - were gravity shunted. However for a backstory perhaps you could imagine some late Victorian speculation that there was coal under the New Forest and speculators started to sink test shafts. Other speculators used the Light Railways Act to plan lines connecting these collieries, aiming to monopolise the shipping out of the black stuff. When the whole speculation collapse the light railway was left with an unfinished line and little traffic. Your terminus then could be a real middle of nowhere location.

 

[Nearholmer]

Shale oil, rather than coal, fits the geology better, and there is the example of the failed shale oil industry in Norfolk to draw upon?

 

https://www.heritage.norfolk.gov.uk/record-details?uid=MNF12556

 

Hetes a nice map showing abandoned hydrocarbon drillings, including plenty in West Hants:

 

 

In fact, it seems that there is an active oil field at Stockbridge, which is close to one of your other possible LRs, I think.

Edited October 27, 2023 by Nearholmer

[corneliuslundie]

It is the Newtown club that decided to built "Montgomery Town" based on an authorised branch of the BCR. But like the BCR itself it looks as though it may never be opened as we are running out of members and it cannot be erected complete in the clubroom, having been envisaged as an exhibition layout. 

What was interesting was considering what locomotives and rolling stock would have been seen on such a branch. If the main line from Lydham Heath to the Montgomery station on the Shrewsbury-Welshpool line had been built, it would have shortened the distance between south and mid Wales considerably  It would therefore have seen significant traffic and our conclusion is that the BCR would have been bought by the GWR or LNWR or jointly, as it would have connected with the joint GWR/LNWR line at Craven Arms. So our branch would have had either GWR or LNWR locos and stock. Not a semi-derelict light railway at all. But we are ignoring that and seeking rolling stock which might have been seen on the BCR as it actually was. One decision was that the BCR purchased a Terrier from Colonel Stephens as he had one on the S&M which was not much use there. 

I relate this because I think it shows the need to think of the bigger picture if one's fictitious line had been built. Probably in most cases one's line would not have been snapped up by one of the big companies though.

Another thought when looking for prototypes. what about lines which were proposed to keep out the competition? The south of England was full of them and there were many which were proposed but not built or not completed as originally proposed.

And a further thought, suggested by the Buckingham branch, which fits what we are talking about. Over the years, as a result of the arrival of the GCR in Buckingham the town grew markedly, leading to Peter Denny enlarging the station. So do we want our layout to represent the line as first built or after it had caused the town or village it served to grow because it was connected to the railway network?

Plenty to think about.

Jonathan

Edited October 28, 2023 by corneliuslundie
Correcting error re BCR

[Nick C]

This is turning into a very interesting thread, thanks everyone! Hopefully some ideas of use to those modelling other parts of the country too...

 

I've been looking on the local archive website, and they've got a few documents of interest (in fact they have a lot of railway documents) - for the Bourne Valley they've got the Notice of Application, deposited plan and draft LRO, and for the Highclere, Kingsclere and Basingstoke they have the prospectus, plan and proposal brochure. Given that getting copies is expensive, does anyone know which of these would be most useful?

[KeithHC]

Here’s a couple for you. The good old Southern(Surrey) heights railway. A proposal from the good colonel would have been operated by the Southern with the provision for 3rd rail. Proposed route was even displayed on maps in Southern carriages.

 

The other one I have considered was the Redhill and Oxted junction railway. As with several light railways only built from Redhill to Godstone. In my mind it would have left the mainline north of Redhill using the route of the link to the Bis sidings. The line would follow the Holmsdale to Godstone. The terminus would be close to the yard of Fairalls builders merchants. Traffic would have been general goods, building materials and coal and agricultural products inbound. For outbound there would have been sand, gravel and closer to Redhill fullers earth. Passenger traffic would have been light and eventually closed down as passengers would find it quicker to go to Catherham.

 

Keith

[whart57]

1 hour ago, KeithHC said:

 

The other one I have considered was the Redhill and Oxted junction railway. As with several light railways only built from Redhill to Godstone. In my mind it would have left the mainline north of Redhill using the route of the link to the Bis sidings. The line would follow the Holmsdale to Godstone. The terminus would be close to the yard of Fairalls builders merchants. Traffic would have been general goods, building materials and coal and agricultural products inbound. For outbound there would have been sand, gravel and closer to Redhill fullers earth. Passenger traffic would have been light and eventually closed down as passengers would find it quicker to go to Catherham.

 

Keith

 

Why not continue to Oxted and link up with the Oxted and East Grinstead line? The line would offer another bypass route and the LBSCR would be very touchy about anyone else - yes you SECR - playing around in the Sussex and Surrey valleys.

 

The problem with suggesting believable light railways in that part of the country is that if a line could be built for the sort of money a light railway company has then one of the mainline companies would already have done so. The LBSCR built a line through every river valley through the South Downs, most of which made little money, and if the SER went no further than Caterham it was because the costs would have been enormous. The Oxted line was first proposed in the 1840s but it was late in the century before it finally got built.

[Nearholmer]

40 minutes ago, whart57 said:

The LBSCR built a line through every river valley through the South Downs, most of which made little money

Cuckmere Valley, not. So, of course, it was the target of a serious LR proposal.

 

Having spent a worryingly high proportion of the past c50 years both studying real LR proposals for Sussex, and inventing my own (not sure which occupation came first) it is territory that within which it is hard to find potentially viable routes in a topographic sense, let alone an economic sense, that haven’t been ‘prospected’ for real schemes. Some of the real proposals were pretty crazy in gradient and curvature terms too - it’s as if people thought that Rolvenden to Tenterden set a benchmark of desirability!

Edited October 27, 2023 by Nearholmer

[whart57]

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Cuckmere Valley, not. So, of course, it was the target of a serious LR proposal.

 

There is precious little there though, and no way to sneak in to Newhaven or Eastbourne that way. The late Peter Bossom was working on a model called Alfriston when he died, though I'm pretty sure with Peter it would have been either a Southern Railway or a BR(S) depiction.

[Nearholmer]

It was part of a plan to develop a new residential district at Birling Gap of all places (for those who don’t know the area, it is famous for gradually tumbling into the sea), and was tangled-up with the provision of the pumping station in Friston Forest, which is linked to Eastbourne by pipes in a tunnel under the high ground at East Dean, which tunnel was I think to be enlarged to take the railway. There is a gravel road up from Exceat to the pumping station, gentle gradient, and nearly dead straight, that was the way coal came in to the pumping station, and it’s very easy to envisage it as a railway formation. So it wasn’t really about the Cuckmere Valley directly.

 

https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3755081

 

This is the initial pumping station, viewed from the south before the forest was planted. The “railway” exits to the left, and the tunnel in the Eastbourne direction goes off below ground to the right.

 

 

But yes, I’ve plotted layouts based on a SR version of it, with the 2ft gauge shingle-collecting line to Cuckmere Haven featuring in a supporting role.

 

 

 

Edited October 27, 2023 by Nearholmer

[Hando]

On 27/10/2023 at 15:16, Nick C said:

This is turning into a very interesting thread, thanks everyone! Hopefully some ideas of use to those modelling other parts of the country too...

 

I've been looking on the local archive website, and they've got a few documents of interest (in fact they have a lot of railway documents) - for the Bourne Valley they've got the Notice of Application, deposited plan and draft LRO, and for the Highclere, Kingsclere and Basingstoke they have the prospectus, plan and proposal brochure. Given that getting copies is expensive, does anyone know which of these would be most useful?

 

It depends what you want to find out really.

If you're wanting to model the "actual" railway in the context of the surrounding landscape, I'd suggest getting the plans first, as they can tell you a lot about the line. Sometimes the route (and the civil engineering in particular) isn't quite what you'd expect. The prospectuses are worth having a look if you'd like to get an idea of what the directors were thinking when they came up with the proposal. The LROs, meanwhile, are good for underlining the operation of the railway. For example, the LRO for the proposed Hope and Castleton Light Railway in Derbyshire gave provisions for the use of overhead electric traction, with land allocated for the construction of a generating station. I doubt the line would've been electrified had it been built, but it is interesting that such an undertaking was considered.

Edited October 28, 2023 by Hando

[Annie]

On 27/10/2023 at 23:45, Nearholmer said:

Shale oil, rather than coal, fits the geology better, and there is the example of the failed shale oil industry in Norfolk to draw upon?

 

https://www.heritage.norfolk.gov.uk/record-details?uid=MNF12556

 

https://www.edp24.co.uk/lifestyle/20787000.oil-dyke-boom-turned-bust-black-gold-struck-norfolk-village/

[009 micro modeller]

On 28/10/2023 at 16:12, Hando said:

For example, the LRO for the proposed Hope and Castleton Light Railway in Derbyshire gave provisions for the use of overhead electric traction, with land allocated for the construction of a generating station. I doubt the line would've been electrified had it been built, but it is interesting that such an undertaking was considered.

That is really interesting and I wonder how many others there were where electrification was specifically authorised/empowered by the LRO (other than the ones that were really Street tramways but built with light railway legislation). Admittedly at the moment I’m just trying to create a bit of backstory for a 2’ 6” gauge electric railway to justify my current micro layout project, but this might develop into a larger project if I add another module later on, and in any case I think it’s good to get these things right even on a small freelance layout. I’m aware of some of the failed schemes to electrify existing lines or their offshoots, as well as the standard gauge hospital railways that actually did get built with electrification. As others have said earlier in the thread, I’m not sure I want to associate too closely with a real but unbuilt scheme as opposed to an imagined one (which gives a bit more flexibility), but just being able to decide roughly where in the country it should be would be a start. Does anyone know how the electricity for Hope and Castleton would have been generated if it had been built as an electric line? I know several of these were built or proposed in settings with easy access to either hydroelectric power or some existing form of generating station (like those serving hospitals or industrial sites, which already generated their own power for other things), but it would be interesting to know if there were exceptions to this.

[Tom Burnham]

There was the Portmadoc, Beddgelert and South Snowdon Railway, which was intended to be electrified, and in fact several locomotives were built by Bruce Peebles & Co (a Ganz licensee) but never delivered.  I believe some of those behind the scheme were also involved with (hydro) electricity supply in North Wales and with the Dolgarrog aluminium smelter.

[009 micro modeller]

1 minute ago, Tom Burnham said:

There was the Portmadoc, Beddgelert and South Snowdon Railway, which was intended to be electrified, and in fact several locomotives were built by Bruce Peebles & Co (a Ganz licensee) but never delivered.  I believe some of those behind the scheme were also involved with (hydro) electricity supply in North Wales and with the Dolgarrog aluminium smelter.

Yes I knew about that one, and also the more vague proposals for a line connecting the Talyllyn and Corris lines. I have a feeling one of the English NG lines (or possibly another Welsh one a bit further south, but I don’t think it was Welshpool) was proposed for electrification as well, but can’t be sure. For prototype inspiration I’d still be quite interested in standard gauge lines as well as some aspects are still relevant regardless of gauge.

[Nick C]

On 28/10/2023 at 16:12, Hando said:

For example, the LRO for the proposed Hope and Castleton Light Railway in Derbyshire gave provisions for the use of overhead electric traction, with land allocated for the construction of a generating station. I doubt the line would've been electrified had it been built, but it is interesting that such an undertaking was considered.

An electric light railway would be an interesting concept to model! I'm imagining something like a cross between a standard gauge version of the MER, and the Hellingly Hospital line...

[Player of trains]

1 hour ago, 009 micro modeller said:

I have a feeling one of the English NG lines (or possibly another Welsh one a bit further south, but I don’t think it was Welshpool) was proposed for electrification as well, but can’t be sure.

The Rheidol was apparently proposed for electrification but I’ve never found more to it than a footnote on the railway website so that might be what you’re thinking of. Given the modern day hydro electric plant in the valley and the Peebles locomotives still in Edinburgh at the time of the proposal (1911 according to the website) it doesn’t seem that far fetched, the Metcalf locos might have stayed or disappeared up north to the NWNGR