In contrast to Glasgow, where the gauge allowed railway wagons to be hauled (by steam locomotives) along streets near the shipyards.
From the National Transport Trust website:
Glasgow's tramlines had a highly unusual track gauge of 1,416 mm (4 feet 7¾ in), allowing 1,435 mm (4 feet 8 1/2 in) standard gauge railway wagons to operate over parts of the tram system (notably in the Govan area) using their wheel flanges running in the slots of the tram tracks.
The USSR was for many years the world's greatest user of trolleybuses, but AIUI the system in Moscow closed some years ago. Many other cities in what was the USSR still use them.
Given the sheer size of the system in Moscow, however, and in other places, the use of trolley lorries seems sensible.
Perhaps this tangent should now carefully reverse into the depot...a most undignified and awkward manoeuvre for a trolleybus...
Before it does, having followed that link,
"It passes through the Crimean Mountains across the Angarskyi Pass, reaching 752 metres (2,500 ft) at the highest point, then descends to the resort town of Alushta on the coast."
I can't help wondering if that is the biggest altitudinal pitch that any trolleybus system in the world has ever had.
There was a stretch of tram track in Glasgow, by the shipyards, which was regularly used for goods traffic. Without checking, I believe that the gauge was very slightly under "standard" and the wagons ran in the groove on their flanges; and that there was a small electric loco to haul them.
The Ian Allan ABC bus book on Glasgow Corporation depicts a short goods train behind a Barclay 0-4-0ST, alongside a Standard tram, but I can't find it online.
This headline, from "RailAdvent", could really be in the headlines thread: "Gornergrat Bahn to welcome new POLARIS trains with stunning Matterhorn views". Surely the views have been there since the line (on which I travelled many moons ago) opened in 1898.
And I can't imagine that the new trains are "engineered to handle gradients of up to 200%" ...!
RailAdvent also announces a special "Asparagus Express" on the Gloucestershire/Warwickshire Railway next Saturday "carrying fresh produce alongside passengers" - that should make for some interesting conversations.
On trolleybuses, I do not know anything about Russian ones, but can well remember UK trolleybus systems in various cities, e.g, Derby, Nottingham, Walsall, Bradford and outer suburban London. I am fairly sure the Derby and Nottingham systems were connected with a through service between the two.
Growing up in the borough of Harrow I find this poem by John Betjeman evokes memories of smoggy nights softening the images of the hissing trolleybuses slowly passing by on the main streets, creating an aura around their headlights.
I can't remember if I rode on a trolleybus when we visited Budapest in the early "noughties", but I definitely recall riding on one in Coimbra, Portugal in 1982 (a system now sadly defunct). More recently I rode an ex-Bournemouth one at the East Anglian Transport Museum (they have quite a fleet).
I haven't checked, but weren't some HSTs sold to Mexico? This was certainly one of BR's most successful designs, and IMHO the faux-Blue Pullman looks much better than the originals...
There were some sets built for New South Wales - well, power cars; the carriages were very different.
I'm sure that the HSTs ride better than the Blue Pullmans ... but I still remember the Pullmans' sheer charisma on the dingy and old-fashioned Midland main line of my childhood.
I hadn't anticipated the difference in platform heights. At work that is a training course...for every passenger! (And in Nigeria the fitted steps might do something to the fuel economy at high speed - if it runs up to high speed?).
Mind you, in their last days the GW HSTs were used on Plymouth-Penzance "all stations" services - hardly what they were built for (13 stops in 79 miles, so somewhat better)!
This place is crawling with HSTs. The train from Stonehaven to Waverley this afternoon consisted of four carriages and two power cars - grotesquely over powered. I asked the driver if he'd been running both engines, and he said they always do. He also said they were rubbish, which I protested, pointing out that they were rougher when new, before the suspension had been reworked. Then I realised I'd been riding in them since before he was born...
The new "Backtrack" magazine, which arrived today, has a tribute to the HSTs. It seems to have forgotten about Scotland - I have written to the editor.
In other news, we've been watching on iPlayer an old programme about Laura Ashley. At the beginning of WW2 she was evacuated from London back to South Wales. Obviously someone making the programme had been asked to provide footage of a Welsh train, and duly obliged with one on the Ffestiniog Railway, complete with double Fairlie. (In any case, it ceased running passenger trains on 15.9.1939).
The new "Backtrack" magazine, which arrived today, has a tribute to the HSTs. It seems to have forgotten about Scotland - I have written to the editor.
In other news, we've been watching on iPlayer an old programme about Laura Ashley. At the beginning of WW2 she was evacuated from London back to South Wales. Obviously someone making the programme had been asked to provide footage of a Welsh train, and duly obliged with one on the Ffestiniog Railway, complete with double Fairlie. (In any case, it ceased running passenger trains on 15.9.1939).
That truly is a gem. I have seen some fairly staggering railway outrages perpetrated by film and television producers over the years, and have retold some of them on these boards. Even in comparison with them, though, the thought of travelling on a 1' 11½" gauge train from Paddington to, say, Cardiff pulled by a double Fairlie and including such track relaid through the Severn Tunnel so one could do so seriously boggles the mind.
Unless you were badly messed about by timetable upsets, I'm sure your journey would have been a lot quicker than the programme maker's version of Laura Ashley's in 1939.
Mind, if you had still been on 7' 0½" you would have had to have gone round by Gloucester or taken the boat from New Passage.
I don't think there's a suitable response to that!
There seems to be a severe speed restriction through Chipping Sodbury Tunnel these days (both directions). Despite remedial works, it still floods quite often and the track is very bumpy!
We would have been on time at Cardiff but were stopped (fairly briefly) outside Newport by a late running Edinburgh-Plymouth train which reverses there. I still caught my bus, though!
Hi all, WiTG and I took a trip on the Heywood to Rawtenstall line yesterday behind a fine steam loco, and back behind a diesel. A good time was had by all. Sorry that I didn’t notice the ID of the loco. We then returned from Bury to Shudehill Interchange by local bus, which we found interesting too as everything is new to us here in Manchester. We also visited the RC church in Rochdale with its stunning mosaic work.
We would have been on time at Cardiff but were stopped (fairly briefly) outside Newport by a late running Edinburgh-Plymouth train which reverses there. I still caught my bus, though!
Newport is known as a “snooker station”, because you have to play a red first.
That sounds great, and I'll have to look up that church.
I've had a lot of train travel recently: to Haverfordwest, London and Norwich, with another London and a Birmingham trip upcoming. That's included some bits of line I hadn't travelled on before: Swansea/Haverfordwest, Bath/Westbury/Reading (diverted due to trespassing incident) and Norwich/Cambridge (weekend engineering).
Two observations: why do some passengers talk so loudly, and why are modern train seats so hard?
That sounds great, and I'll have to look up that church.
I've had a lot of train travel recently: to Haverfordwest, London and Norwich, with another London and a Birmingham trip upcoming. That's included some bits of line I hadn't travelled on before: Swansea/Haverfordwest, Bath/Westbury/Reading (diverted due to trespassing incident) and Norwich/Cambridge (weekend engineering).
Two observations: why do some passengers talk so loudly, and why are modern train seats so hard?
Oh yes to your second observation! The first day I caught a Hitachi at Oxford, having caught an HST the day before, I flopped onto the seat - and thought I'd broken my coccyx!
The seats are no softer on the Greater Anglia 745/755 trains on which I travelled. They have a rather odd arrangement in which the seats above the bogies are mounted on little platforms - the recorded announcements draw attention to these and the lower headroom. But - wow - the 745s have the fastest acceleration I've ever known on a train - not surprising when you have 7000hp for about 200 tons of train, beats a "Deltic plus eight" any day!
The blue HS1s on our local service to St Pancras (known by Southern Railway enthusiasts as 6-JAVs) have hard seats, BUT plenty of leg-room for those of us with long knees! The seats are fine for the dash from Our Town to St P, but not for a longer journey...
Apropos railways and films, and the egregious mistakes so often made, there's less excuse these days, given the number of heritage lines which successfully capture the atmosphere of the steam railway of the past 120 years or so.
Yes, but I've noticed films made on heritage lines which have employed the wrong trains (eg BR Mk1 carriages in 1920) even though one knows they have the right ones!
Yes, but I've noticed films made on heritage lines which have employed the wrong trains (eg BR Mk1 carriages in 1920) even though one knows they have the right ones!
Alas, too true.
I can only think offhand of one major heritage line which doesn't have Mk1s - the Isle of Wight Steam Railway. I'm sure there are others, perhaps those of industrial origin?
Yes, I think it does, given its seniority! A Mk1 would look rather silly, even if it fitted, IYSWIM...
I don't think anyone's yet created a full-size replica of an original Middleton Railway locomotive of 1812 - four-feet and one-inch gauge, and with a rack on the outside of one rail. The engines must have looked like 0-4-0s on one side, and 0-6-0s on the rack-fitted side...
Hi all, WiTG and I took a trip on the Heywood to Rawtenstall line yesterday behind a fine steam loco, and back behind a diesel. A good time was had by all. Sorry that I didn’t notice the ID of the loco. We then returned from Bury to Shudehill Interchange by local bus, which we found interesting too as everything is new to us here in Manchester. We also visited the RC church in Rochdale with its stunning mosaic work.
Sounds fun - a tram is my usual way of getting back from there to the city centre, but a bus is probably cheaper! If you like this kind of thing the GM bus museum at Queen's Rd is worth a visit, and even (dare I say it, as I volunteer there) our Anson Engine Museum near Poynton on the other side of Stockport.
Was happy to encounter the rusty remains of a 2 foot (I think) gauge railway on the island of Inchcolm today. I need to find out a bit more, but it was likely for hauling ammunition up from the jetty, back when the island was defending the Forth Bridge and Rosyth dockyard in WW2. Being very steep, it was probably cable operated by a winch at the top.
And on an island in Our River estuary here, until comparatively recently.
Two feet, or 60 centimetres, was a gauge in common military use from WW1 onwards. 18 inch gauge was used extensively in Woolwich Arsenal, Chatham Dockyard, and probably other places.
The Deptford Meat Depot, for one - from which the erstwhile Sand Hutton Light Railway bought its locomotives and wagons (but not its coach and brake van) at knockdown Government Surplus prices.
The Deptford Meat Depot, for one - from which the erstwhile Sand Hutton Light Railway bought its locomotives and wagons (but not its coach and brake van) at knockdown Government Surplus prices.
Which raises for me the interesting question of how the government decided what to sell off as surplus and what do destroy out of fear of suppressing post-war demand and crashing the economy. A fair quantity of trucks and bicycles were buried in the dunes here immediately post war to prevent civilian use.
The Deptford Meat Depot, for one - from which the erstwhile Sand Hutton Light Railway bought its locomotives and wagons (but not its coach and brake van) at knockdown Government Surplus prices.
Engaging little Hunslet 0-4-0 well tanks - the Sand Hutton quartet was scrapped when the railway closed, but a similar, slightly earlier, 0-4-0WT named Jack survives in preservation (in Leeds, I think).
Sir Robert Walker of Sand Hutton bought no less than 75 wagons from Deptford, which makes one wonder (as @Arethosemyfeet implies) how many more there were. And how many of the little engines were left unsold?
It looks busy - plenty of work for a dozen engines!
I wondered if any of the Hunslets went to other nearby 18-inch gauge systems, such as Woolwich Arsenal and Chatham Dockyard, but apparently not. The narrow-gauge lines in those places were already falling out of use post-WW1.
Yes. The letter-boards on the engines don't indicate destinations, but, in true military style, the duty on which they're engaged. A similar system was used at Woolwich Arsenal.
It looks busy - plenty of work for a dozen engines!
I wondered if any of the Hunslets went to other nearby 18-inch gauge systems, such as Woolwich Arsenal and Chatham Dockyard, but apparently not. The narrow-gauge lines in those places were already falling out of use post-WW1.
“Stothert and Pitt of Bath crane” noted. My old school was just up the road from their works which we visited. We also inherited machine tools from the firm when they were beyond their use but fine for us.
Yes. The letter-boards on the engines don't indicate destinations, but, in true military style, the duty on which they're engaged. A similar system was used at Woolwich Arsenal.
The South Wales coal trains used similar but more complex "target" codes to delineate loco duties - later replaced (?in diesel days) by the more familiar 4-character codes.
Comments
From the National Transport Trust website:
Glasgow's tramlines had a highly unusual track gauge of 1,416 mm (4 feet 7¾ in), allowing 1,435 mm (4 feet 8 1/2 in) standard gauge railway wagons to operate over parts of the tram system (notably in the Govan area) using their wheel flanges running in the slots of the tram tracks.
Quite a climb, though the trolleybus system in Mexico City (7000+ feet above sea level) might be the highest in the world.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/51227209@N03/5993394402
The Ian Allan ABC bus book on Glasgow Corporation depicts a short goods train behind a Barclay 0-4-0ST, alongside a Standard tram, but I can't find it online.
And I can't imagine that the new trains are "engineered to handle gradients of up to 200%" ...!
RailAdvent also announces a special "Asparagus Express" on the Gloucestershire/Warwickshire Railway next Saturday "carrying fresh produce alongside passengers" - that should make for some interesting conversations.
https://www.poeticous.com/john-betjeman/harrow-on-the-hill
The nearest trolleybus system to the UK is now that at Arnhem in the Netherlands:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolleybuses_in_Arnhem
AFAIK the single trolleybus route in Ghent, Belgium, is no longer in operation, though the tramway system is very much alive and well.
There were some sets built for New South Wales - well, power cars; the carriages were very different.
I'm sure that the HSTs ride better than the Blue Pullmans ... but I still remember the Pullmans' sheer charisma on the dingy and old-fashioned Midland main line of my childhood.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK4_BeRp5p0
and Nigeria:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1P4uvEJ7e8
Mind you, in their last days the GW HSTs were used on Plymouth-Penzance "all stations" services - hardly what they were built for (13 stops in 79 miles, so somewhat better)!
In other news, we've been watching on iPlayer an old programme about Laura Ashley. At the beginning of WW2 she was evacuated from London back to South Wales. Obviously someone making the programme had been asked to provide footage of a Welsh train, and duly obliged with one on the Ffestiniog Railway, complete with double Fairlie. (In any case, it ceased running passenger trains on 15.9.1939).
Mind, if you had still been on 7' 0½" you would have had to have gone round by Gloucester or taken the boat from New Passage.
There seems to be a severe speed restriction through Chipping Sodbury Tunnel these days (both directions). Despite remedial works, it still floods quite often and the track is very bumpy!
We would have been on time at Cardiff but were stopped (fairly briefly) outside Newport by a late running Edinburgh-Plymouth train which reverses there. I still caught my bus, though!
Newport is known as a “snooker station”, because you have to play a red first.
I've had a lot of train travel recently: to Haverfordwest, London and Norwich, with another London and a Birmingham trip upcoming. That's included some bits of line I hadn't travelled on before: Swansea/Haverfordwest, Bath/Westbury/Reading (diverted due to trespassing incident) and Norwich/Cambridge (weekend engineering).
Two observations: why do some passengers talk so loudly, and why are modern train seats so hard?
Oh yes to your second observation! The first day I caught a Hitachi at Oxford, having caught an HST the day before, I flopped onto the seat - and thought I'd broken my coccyx!
Apropos railways and films, and the egregious mistakes so often made, there's less excuse these days, given the number of heritage lines which successfully capture the atmosphere of the steam railway of the past 120 years or so.
Alas, too true.
I can only think offhand of one major heritage line which doesn't have Mk1s - the Isle of Wight Steam Railway. I'm sure there are others, perhaps those of industrial origin?
I don't think anyone's yet created a full-size replica of an original Middleton Railway locomotive of 1812 - four-feet and one-inch gauge, and with a rack on the outside of one rail. The engines must have looked like 0-4-0s on one side, and 0-6-0s on the rack-fitted side...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middleton_Railway
Sounds fun - a tram is my usual way of getting back from there to the city centre, but a bus is probably cheaper! If you like this kind of thing the GM bus museum at Queen's Rd is worth a visit, and even (dare I say it, as I volunteer there) our Anson Engine Museum near Poynton on the other side of Stockport.
Two feet, or 60 centimetres, was a gauge in common military use from WW1 onwards. 18 inch gauge was used extensively in Woolwich Arsenal, Chatham Dockyard, and probably other places.
Which raises for me the interesting question of how the government decided what to sell off as surplus and what do destroy out of fear of suppressing post-war demand and crashing the economy. A fair quantity of trucks and bicycles were buried in the dunes here immediately post war to prevent civilian use.
Engaging little Hunslet 0-4-0 well tanks - the Sand Hutton quartet was scrapped when the railway closed, but a similar, slightly earlier, 0-4-0WT named Jack survives in preservation (in Leeds, I think).
https://www.16mm.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Jack02.jpg
Sir Robert Walker of Sand Hutton bought no less than 75 wagons from Deptford, which makes one wonder (as @Arethosemyfeet implies) how many more there were. And how many of the little engines were left unsold?
https://stocktonontheforest.org.uk/archive/Transport/SHLR/deptford.htm
It looks busy - plenty of work for a dozen engines!
I wondered if any of the Hunslets went to other nearby 18-inch gauge systems, such as Woolwich Arsenal and Chatham Dockyard, but apparently not. The narrow-gauge lines in those places were already falling out of use post-WW1.
“Stothert and Pitt of Bath crane” noted. My old school was just up the road from their works which we visited. We also inherited machine tools from the firm when they were beyond their use but fine for us.
The South Wales coal trains used similar but more complex "target" codes to delineate loco duties - later replaced (?in diesel days) by the more familiar 4-character codes.