New to N

Many thanks, amazing site ! Wonderful reading, Lots to digest !!

This part caught my eye on an initial reading :- "The earliest reference to concrete sleepers I have found was on the distinctly different Weston, Clevedon & Portishead Light Railway who used them from about 1909. "

If it is the same railway as I am thinking of, I walked a section of it near Portishead some 20year or more ago, I seem to remember wooden sleepers buried inamongst the weeds and rusting rails, but I could be wrong. Perhaps I have got the wrong thing because I was into biology and biodiversity etc,, not railways, at that time ! I'll have to dig out my old maps from the attic and do some googling I think. Perhaps I was on a Portishead - Bristol bit of railway ,, ,, hmmm, youve just given me lots more to think about :) ! When the weather becomes more clement I think I might go back and have another look. It puzzled me at the time because it had been disused for many years yet the track (or some track) was still in place. ( The station and yards etc in Clevedon are long gone though, pedestrianised shopping area and Morrisons supermarket now )

PS , What was "distinctly different" about it ?? and what does "Light" mean, was it narrow gauge or something ?

Light usually means covered by a Light Railway Order. Which means running at lower standards of inspection and safety than a "proper" railway, combined with a low line speed (25mph I think). Most preserved lines in the UK run under Light Railway regulations.

The WC&PR was originally planned as a tramway (which would imply closed skirts on locomotives, like the Wisbech & Upwell). However, it was changed to a light railway pretty much at the beginning of the line's life. It ended up in the Colonel Stephens railway empire, so would have had the typical shoe-string appeal of Stephen's lines. It was closed and dismantled by WW2; given its light construction, I wonder if the thing you found 20 years ago was part of it or not ? However, locally to me there are still traces of the Mid Suffolk if you know where to look (another Light Railway).

Modelling the WC&PR convincingly in N is probably a non-starter. You might just pull it off in 2mm finescale, though the tiny locomotives would be a challenge. 3mm or 4mm scales would be easier.

FWIW, the concrete sleepers in Peco track represent more modern types, not the spindly light track that Light Railway's would use.

- Nigel

The message from snipped-for-privacy@dontspam.nothere.com (WaltA) contains these words:

Ah yes! The WC & P... [Say it out loud - without laughing!]

As noted by Nigel the light railways tended toward the idiosyncratic featuring odd and often elderly locomotives. The Weston, Clevedon & Portishead Light Railway had its own curiosities but unfortunately that section was written in about 1985 and my books are currently in storage and I cannot recall what prompted that comment. If nothing else however the track as distinctly odd looking! From memory they switch to conventional wooden sleepers for most of the track but some of the old stuff was still in place (somewhere close to the coast) for some years after the line closed.

On the matter of light railways . . .

In 1895 an act of parliament allowed the setting up of 'Light Railways', this was in part an attempt to help the rural farmers compete in the new national market supplied with cheap imported food. The light railway was not bound by the same regulations as the larger main line companies and so cost less to operate, but the speed on such lines was restricted to a 25 mph (40 kph) and the maximum load was about ten tons per wagon. Not all light railways were operated by minor companies, some lesser branch lines of the larger concerns had originally been granted their Act of Parliament for goods traffic only. Some of these goods-only branches were granted the right to carry passengers under light railway orders. This means you can have a branch line on your layout which uses older and lighter locomotives, older carriages and carries regular goods traffic.

The last Light Railway to operate in the UK was (I believe) the Derwent Valley Light Railway which opened in 1913 and closed down in the later

1980's having remained independent throughout it's existence. There are some useful photos of this line taken in the 1970's in the book British Railway Goods Wagons in Colour by Robert Hendry (Midland Publishing ISBN 9781857800944).

Light Railways generally had lower platforms than the main line companies and some arranged stops at the level crossings on the line, this was one reason so many early lines had footboards on their carriages. The larger railways companies then tried the same idea, fitting local coaches with fold down steps to allow passengers to board at level crossings. This was not considered a success, Humphrey Household's book Gloucestershire Railways in the Twenties (published by Alan Sutton in 1984, ISBN 0862991978) suggests that after trying this approach on their steam rail-motor coach units in about 1900-1903 the GWR switched to building short wooden platforms and in so doing introduced the word Halt to describe them.

It is perhaps worth noting that at the end of the nineteenth century there were about fifteen hundred miles (2,400 km) of horse-hauled wagon ways still operating in Britain.

There were a number of narrow gauge lines in the country, many of which operated as light railways. The problem faced by these lines was the transhipment of goods to and from standard gauge stock. One company, the Leek & Manifold Light Railway solved this problem by building transporter wagons. These had 'foot boards' to either side fitted with rails to carry standard gauge wagons. The London & North Western Railway and the Great Western Railway, both of whom operated services into the slate producing areas of North Wales, built standard gauge transporter wagons so the loaded narrow gauge slate trucks could be carried to the docks without transhipment.

HTH

Mike

Thanks for the info Nigel, I am beginning to think not and that maybe it was some bit of the GWR nearby, But memory is still being excavated ;) ! So I''ll come back on that later.

No, not to model the WC&P, this is just an offshoot as a result of our comments about the use of concrete sleepers in general.

If I am going to set my model in a place and a period it would more likely be Carlisle Upperby, Kingmoor or Canal sheds or perhaps Carlisle/Wetheral/Hexam/Allandale sometime late WW2 up to '60ish. (I think the passenger service from Hexam to Allendale was closed before WW2, which is a bit of a limitation, but hey ! I'll be the fat controller so I'll decide now !! :) ) Whichever, lots of scope for LMS/LNER of fancy.

Ah yes, [Quote]The blocks measured 20" x 12" x 7.5" spaced at 2ft 2in.[/quote] from

of Def. not Pecoish ! :)

Hehee, an impossible task ! There is(*) a "public facility" with a Ladies and a Gents entrance, midway between where I suppose the station was and the Triangle in Clevedon.

Actually, when I first visited Clevedon there was a derelect site just a few yards up the road from the old clock tower in the Triangle. It was fenced off and there were some rails thrust vertically into the ground as part of that fence and the gateway, It later became the Supermarket etc. site.

• at least it was there about 6months ago, but there were yet more building works going on, so maybe even that memory has vanished.

Thank you very much Mike all very interesting and food for thought.

I read something (but did not give it much thought at the time) about a rail line that became horse-drawn after another line opened nearby, in an area that I am thinking of modelling , not sure about its period or timespan nor if it returned to steam again later. I'l have to go back to googling, see if I can find it again.

Thinks,,, how to electrify a horse model :) :) !

Its been done (well in OO it has) the horse had hinged legs I believe, with single strands from a paint brush or similar on the end of each one and these dragged across the sleepers, the horse being attached to a motorised van. That was a while ago, I heard about it in about 1980 I think - Good luck if you are going to try it! (a cranked axle with push rods would give a more even motion though, its never been done in N, Hmmmm . . . . )

Found it : (Quote) When the Carlisle & Silloth Bay Railway & Dock Company (C&SBRDC) opened their Carlisle to Silloth line in 1856 it utilised the Port Carlisle Branch as far as Drumburgh and the remaining part of the Port Carlisle line then became a horse worked branch. The Port Carlisle Railway Company agreed to supply a locomotive if the C&SBRDC provided rolling stock. (/quote)

from

/puts model of Drumburgh Junction (and/or Station) into the possibilities file :)