exmoordave Posted April 16, 2012 Share Posted April 16, 2012 Hi Everyone My cousin in Australia sent me an attachment showing period film footage of a miniature railway in Camberley, Surrey that apparently ran from there down to Farnborough Green, providing a return trip of some 4 miles. The film was taken in 1938 I believe and although I lived and worked in the area during the 1970s, I know absolutely nothing about this line! Can anyone help please? Many thanks in advance exmoordave Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jules Posted April 16, 2012 Share Posted April 16, 2012 The Surrey Border and Camberley Railway BY Peter Mitchell, Simon Townsend and Malclm Shelerdine ISBN 0 871980 15 1 should tell you everything you want to know! 10 1/4" gauge edit : I haven't read the book in a long time so without re-reading it, I can't give any more info at the momnt. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
45669 Posted April 16, 2012 Share Posted April 16, 2012 A couple of the Surrey Border and Camberley Railway locomotives can still be seen on the Eastleigh Lakeside Railway in Hampshire. See http://www.steamtrai...le.php?xArt=108 and http://www.steamtrai...cle.php?xArt=46 There are also a few pictures of one of these locos on my Flickr site; see the Eastleigh Lakeside Railway Set in the Miniature Railways Collection : http://www.flickr.co...57627518542192/ The line closed in 1939, heavily in debt. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
L49 Posted May 19, 2012 Share Posted May 19, 2012 The line must have been the unluckiest venture in miniature railway development. It was designed and built by a fantastic large scale model engineer H C S Bullock, and financed by Alexander Kinloch. The line opened late in 1938, and operated for less than a year before it closed at the outbreak of the war. There was quite an extensive locomotive fleet, ranging from an 0.4.2 side tank, and a scale pannier, up to a pair of gorgeous 4.6.2-2.6.4 garratts. My personal favourites would be the variousl classes of pacific which operated on the line, three of which are, as mentioned above, on the Eastleigh Lakeside railway. The 0.4.2t was rebuilt into an 0.6.0 tender engine, and is now running on Kerrs miniature railway, and one of the garrats (I think it is 5013) is running in much rebuilt form on a line in Southampton. The railway itself was pretty heavily engineered, and included a five platform terminus at Farnborough Green, which was mostly covered by an impressive overall roof. There were two intermediate stations at Cove Wood and Watchetts Wood before the other end of the line which seems to have been in a rather secluded spot behind a row of houses in Camberley. My sister in law lived in Camberley for a while, and we went looking for any sign of the railway, but there was nothing to see, although Google earth shows what could possibly be a short stretch of embankment running across a field near the verge of Cove Wood, and I have read that the double track bridge over the river at the edge of the wood was still in situ until fairly recently, but I never found it! We went to visit Eastleigh on our way to the Isle of Wight last year, just to see the Bullock pacifics, and they are quite beautiful locomotives, and according to the driver I spoke to, they are really free steamers, and pretty powerful too. I would recommend a visit to see and ride behind them! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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