rogerfarnworth

The second post in this series has been completed. It covers the Coalbrookdale Company Tramroads which appear on the 6" OS Maps from 1882/83 and later map series, particularly the 25" series from the turn of the 20th century. I have walked a major part of the network as it existed in around 1882 and have provided present day photographs of the routes where ever possible. http://rogerfarnworth.com/2022/04/26/ancient-tramroads-near-telford-part-2-the-coalbrookdale-company-tramroads-shown-on-the-1882-83-6-os-maps-published-in-1887-and-later-surveys

Having moved to Telford relatively recently, I have started to look in detail at the railway heritage of the area. This starts with a waggonway being in existence by at least 1605 (but maybe earlier). Over four centuries of various forms of railway! My first offering on the Railways of Telford was a review of a book by David Clarke with the same title, see this link .... https://rogerfarnworth.com/2021/12/26/the-railways-of-telford-part-1-a-book-review This second offering begins a series looking at the waggonways/plateways/tramways/tramroads which preceded the coming of the more modern railways. There is probably a debate to be had over the correct names to use for these lines. I have not decided but I have used the word 'tramroad' in the title of the series. Perhaps 'plateways' would be better as most of these lines were in the end made up of a series of short L-shaped rails sitting on stone blocks and were used by trams/wagons which had wheels without flanges. Others may have firm opinions about this!? OS Maps seem invariably to use the word 'Tramway' for these old lines. http://rogerfarnworth.com/2022/04/25/ancient-tramroads-near-telford-part-1-tramroads

A visit to Abergavenny on 25th April 2022 for a meeting gave me an hour so so to start a look at the historic transport hub that is the village of Govilon where Bailey's Tramroad, and the Llanvihangel Tramroad met on the side of the Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal. The site also includes the remains of the later Heads of the Valley Railway Line. The linked post comes from just an hour spent in Govilon, following the line of the railway, the Canal and Bailey's Tramroad. https://rogerfarnworth.com/2022/04/27/baileys-tramroad-part-1-the-monmouthshire-and-brecon-canal-and-an-introduction-to-the-heads-of-the-valley-line-or-more-succinctly-a-short-walk-at-govilon

Excellent item and photos!

I have reloaded the link. It appears to be working now. ... My apologies.

Two evocative photos of the Bodmin and Wadebridge Railway appeared in the Railway Magazine in the spring of 1948. This is a first brief look at the line ..... http://rogerfarnworth.com/2022/02/19/the-railway-magazine-march-and-april-1948-the-bodmin-and-wadebridge-railway/ By the time the photographs were taken the railway had been open for more than 50 years. Opened in 1834, the line was intended to link the quays at Wadebridge at the head of the Camel Estuary with the town of Bodmin in Cornwall.

A recent gift (December 2021) from a valued colleague, to mark my pending retirement and my move to Telford, was 'Railways of Telford' by David Clarke https://rogerfarnworth.com/2021/12/26/the-railways-of-telford-part-1-a-book-review/ This is my review of the book which, as you will read, should become a primer for me for exploring Telford and Wrekin and the wider area of East Shropshire!

After reading Humphrey Household's book about the Railways of Gloucestershire in the Twenties, I decided to look out for other books he had written. In "Narrow Gauge Railways - Wales and the Western Front", Humphrey Household focusses on Narrow Gauge lines in Wales (centred on a family holiday taken in August 1925 and then follows this with a chapter about the 60 cm light railways which served the trenches in the First World War and providing a final chapter about the Ashover Light Railway which sourced much of its stock through the MOD after the War and chose its gauge specifically to match that source of rolling stock, locomotives and materials. http://rogerfarnworth.com/2021/10/29/narrow-gauge-railways-humphrey-household/

I have just finished reading Roy Davies', Wennington to Morecambe and Heysham (via Lancaster) which was published as one of the Middleton Press Albums. The review is below: https://rogerfarnworth.com/2021/10/10/wennington-to-morecambe-and-heysham-via-lancaster

Humphrey Household included a short chapter about the Forest in his 1984 book about the railways of Gloucestershire in the 1920s http://rogerfarnworth.com/2021/09/17/the-forest-of-dean-tramways-and-railways-an-addendum

This is a short addendum to previous posts and is about the Cheltenham end of the tramroad. It highlights exuberant reflections on the Leckhampton Quarries by Humphrey Household. .... http://rogerfarnworth.com/2021/09/16/the-gloucester-and-cheltenham-tramroad-an-addendum/

Recently, reading old copies of BackTrack magazine, I came across an article which included memories from an Army engineer of time spent in Iran in the early 1940s and in the same issue of the magazine a short note about the involvement of the GWR in Iran. These seemed to be fitting items for an addendum to this series of articles. This is the link to the new post. https://rogerfarnworth.com/2021/09/14/railways-in-iran-an-addendum

An addendum to earlier posts about this short line. ..... https://rogerfarnworth.com/2021/09/09/the-micklehurst-loop-once-more/

Some further suggestions for holiday reading ..... http://rogerfarnworth.com/2021/09/09/holiday-reading-again Two more books which are worth taking with you on holiday: Chris Arnot; Small Island by Little Train; ISBN 978-0-7495-7849-7. Tom Chesshyre; Slow Trains to Venice; ISBN 978-1-78783-299-2.

A couple of books for holiday reading! http://rogerfarnworth.com/2021/08/08/holiday-reading

July 2021's Narrow Gauge World has a short article about the possible spend of 327 million Euros to refurbish metre gauge lines in Uganda.

In March 2021, Tony Jervis, an on-line acquaintance, sent me some photographs from visits that he made over the years to the inclined plane at Coalport. These are shared below with his kind permission. https://rogerfarnworth.com/2021/06/10/coalport-incline-ironbridge-addendum-2021

This is the next post in a series about the railways of Co. Donegal. It focusses on one viaduct on the Londonderry & Lough Swilly Railway (L&LSR) - the Owencarrow Viaduct - and specifically on an accident which occurred there in 1925 https://rogerfarnworth.com/2021/05/30/the-owencarrow-viaduct-accident-in-1925 In the February 1963 edition of The Railway Magazine there was a letter from L. Hudlass which said: "The accident on the Owencarrow Viaduct, on the Letterkenny & Burtonport line, Ireland, of January 30, 1925, involved a westbound train running from Londonderry to Burtonport, on the Burtonport extension of the Londonderry and Lough Swilly Railway. The 380 yd.-long viaduct, sited between Kilmacrenan and Creeslough in County Tirconaill is in wild and open country and, on the day in question, a gale of 100mph caught the train broadside on and one carriage plunged through the parapet, pulling another with it. The couplings held and neither of the vehicles fell into the valley, but roof destruction caused several passengers to be thrown out, three people being killed outright.

Until I read the February 1963 edition of 'The Railway Magazine', I had no idea that steam trams served boroughs in the Manchester conurbation. ......... https://rogerfarnworth.com/2021/05/29/a-steam-tram-at-heywood-middleton-manchester-uk John R. Prentice says that "the Manchester, Bury, Rochdale and Oldham Steam Tramways Co. Ltd. (MBRO, founded c.1883) became the second largest steam tramway operator in Britain with over 90 tram engines, 80 double-deck passenger trailers and 30 miles of routes. Of all these, two-thirds of stock and track were narrow gauge (3ft 6ins), including the section between Bury and Rochdale, through Heywood.

Another visit to the railways of Jamaica, courtesy, this time, of H.G. Forsythe in the September 1963 edition of the Railway Magazine. ..... https://rogerfarnworth.com/2021/05/28/the-railways-of-jamaica-again

Fantastic picture. Are you building a model of the line?

This last post on the Micklehurst Loop completes the journey to Diggle and takes us to the mouths of the Standedge tunnels and Diggle Station. We completed our walk in January but returned in April to take a few pictures at the site of what was once Diggle Station. .... https://rogerfarnworth.com/2021/04/16/the-micklehurst-loop-part-4

At the insistence of the Governor of Uganda an independent novel rail system was tried out in the early 1920s. The trial resulted in the building of a line between Kampala and Bombo which operated during the middle years of that decade. Ultimately, the system failed and it was closed well before the end of the decade. https://rogerfarnworth.com/2021/04/03/the-kampala-to-bombo-railway This was a project run by the Direct Works department of the protectorate/colony and was not part of the much wider network of "The Uganda Railway" which stretched from Mombasa on the coast of Kenya to Kampala and eventually on the Kasese in the West of Uganda. I discovered this line when I came across it in an article by Henry Lubega. I have discovered quite a bit more about the design philosophy since then. The system used for the line, the Stronagh-Dutton Roadrail System, is referred to elsewhere – particularly in “Narrow Gauge Steam … and other railway curiosities, Volume 1,” a ‘bookazene’ published by Kelsey Publishing and in a relatively short publication by the Narrow Gauge Society. At first look, it seems quite an ingenious idea – removing the weight of the locomotive from the rails enabled much lighter rails to be used. In practice, however a whole series of factors rendered the idea impracticable.

At the insistence of the Governor of Uganda an independent novel rail system was tried out in the early 1920s. The trial resulted in the building of a line between Kampala and Bombo which operated during the middle years of that decade. Ultimately, the system failed and it was closed well before the end of the decade. https://rogerfarnworth.com/2021/04/03/the-kampala-to-bombo-railway This was a project run by the Direct Works department of the protectorate/colony and was not part of the much wider network of "The Uganda Railway" which stretched from Mombasa on the coast of Kenya to Kampala and eventually on the Kasese in the West of the Country. A series of articles about the much larger network can be found by following this link: I discovered this line when I came across it in an article by Henry Lubega. I have discovered quite a bit more about the design philosophy since then. The system used for the line, the Stronagh-Dutton Roadrail System, is referred to elsewhere – particularly in “Narrow Gauge Steam … and other railway curiosities, Volume 1,” a ‘bookazene’ published by Kelsey Publishing and in a relatively short publication by the Narrow Gauge Society. At first look, it seems quite an ingenious idea – removing the weight of the locomotive from the rails enabled much lighter rails to be used. In practice, however a whole series of factors rendered the idea impracticable.

This is the last post based around the book by M.F. Hill which was published in 1949, just as the Tanganyika and Kenya/Uganda networks became one organisation. It cover the Second World War and the few years immediately after. ..... https://rogerfarnworth.com/2021/03/29/the-kenya-and-uganda-railways-and-harbours-the-second-world-war-and-after