Changing levels.

That's what I was thinking of - wagon hoists!

Looks like a good device, but $399.99 is a bit pricey, and the site wants Flash Player installed to play the demo.

Glasgow underground(?) I saw a TV programme about a railway (Germany somewhere?) used for lifting barges between widely vertically seperated canals.

Greg.P.

Yes.

The Anderton Lift in England:

There was also the Hay Inclined Plane, near IronBridge and now part of the Blists Hill Open Air Museum. A railway track went into the water at each end, and the boats were attached to wagons that were dragged up the incline.

I'd never seen a photo of it, but as it's underground I guess it's difficult for photographers to get a representative shot of it. ;-)

Those would be similar, but the locals were all talking German so I don't think they are the one I saw. Anyway, a length of supported model track could be hauled up an steep incline, either longtitudinally or sideways to change levels without the model train having to negotiate an impossible gradient on it's own. The builder of "Buckingham" had a train lifter built from Meccano girders for one of his earlier limited space layouts. It was in Railway Modeller some time in the 1950s.

Greg.P.

I remember the article, and I think it was more recent than that. I'd get the occasional RM in the 1960s but didn't get it regularly until I'd moved into my own house and unpacked the boxed Triang in 1977.

I think that was just for a prototype that was never incorporated into a layout.

But there was at least one American street car system that had a lift. I couldn't find it on the web though.

It was a steeply angled track like a Mountain railway. Instead of a regular car being pulled up or down there was a triangular "car" consisting of a framework with a piece of level track on top. The streetcar would run onto that, be lowered and then run off in the same direction.

The Trent-Severn Waterway in Ontario has two lift locks and a marine railway (inclined plane).

What are two English rivers doing over there?

We also have the Humber, Don, Thames...

The current marine railway, located at Big Chute falls, looks nothing like a railway. It does run on rails, though. The previous version, running on standard track, is still in place, and until a few years ago was operational as a backup. It is now merely an exhibit - no cables in place to haul the flatcar up and down.

It's worth a visit. take exit 162 on highway 400. It's about a 15 minute drive along a charming bushroad (which was straightened and widened a few years ago, so as not scare the townies too much. ;-)) In late spring, you can see swaths of trilliums, Ontario's Provincial flower.

HTH

[..]

Linking Lake Huron and the upper St Lawrence river. With the help of a few locks, ands some stretches of canal. The Waterway was originally built to connect Bytown (now Ottawa) to the St Lawrence, and extended to provide a commercial route that bypassed the Niagara escarpment and to open up eastern Ontario. The railways killed it, as they killed canals everywhere. It is now a recreational waterway, and well worth a visit. You can rent a houseboat if you don't want to sail your own across the Atlantic.... ;-)

Could it be the Elblag canal in Poland?