Indeed it is. And here is a mining connection - it used to be parked up at Brockham Pits in Surrey, directly over an old hearthstone mine. :smartass:

I suppose it must have worked sufficiently well for it to have survived, though?

a bit more googling about, reveals that one of the locomotives is preserved at Towyn, in the Tal-y-Llyn Railway museum. And,the gauge was indeed determined by the requirement to negotiate an extremely tight spiral linking two levels within the works!

can't work out that welsh signature, by the by. My usual translator turns it into gibberish - more so than usual, that is.

---

oh ok, I stand corrected on that, then. The main thing which sticks in my mind about the Guiness railway is those wierd converter wagons so the narrowgauge locos could shunt SG wagons.

there were a range of minimum gauge experiments around at one time - Decauville experimented with various gauges in the 40cm - 50cm range as well - but for various technical reasons to do with loco tractive effort and range, and proportion of deadweight to payload, the 60cm gauge is demonstrably the smallest effective gauge unless overall space constraints ( especially minimum radius ) are the deciding factor

I can't find any reference to the transporter wagons going to the Ashover, the Lynton and Barnstaple had some though. That was a 60cm gauge line using locos which were very large, by the standards of British 2ft gauge anyway, if nothing like the South African monsters the Welsh Higland now has.

some ex-Ashover bogies are now in temporary use at the L&B project.. small world

There's a recent Narrow Gauge Railway Society publication on transporter wagons in the UK and Ireland. There's no known record of the Lynton & Barnstaple actually having any, though its main original promoter claimed at the time of opening that something like that existed. But then he was a newspaper man and perhaps not to be trusted on details...

The Ashover transporter was one of the Manifold ones regauged, and was too heavy for the track and possibly used only once.

The Welshpool and Llanfair have recently bought an Austrian transporter wagon (Rollwagen) but don't plan to use it as such.

If work sticks to its present schedule you may be able to ride behind a replica L&B loco next year - on the Welsh Highland...!

preserved narrow gauge railways are too incestuous for words...

I wouldn't be thatdogmatic about who had what, at this late stage!

---

Transporter wagon LMS Number 195312 (and LMS D plated as such) was purchased by the Clay Cross Company in 1934 ex Leek and Manifold use. This was the 2nd of a batch of 5 built by Cravens in Sheffield between 1904, 1908 and 1 for the LMS in 1923. The Clay cross co payed £35 for it and £6 17s for delivery. It was delivered to their own Iron Works and re-gauged to 2ft. It was not a success as to heavy and there were fouling issues so it ended up dumped at Ford Loop. It went back to Clay cross Yard in 1942. It was cut up with the rest of the stock by Marple & Gillott Ltd in 1951 on site. 😉

---

Ben, how far along with the L&B loco are they now??

---

I suppose it must have worked sufficiently well for it to have survived, though?

a bit more googling about, reveals that one of the locomotives is preserved at Towyn, in the Tal-y-Llyn Railway museum. And,the gauge was indeed determined by the requirement to negotiate an extremely tight spiral linking two levels within the works!

can't work out that welsh signature, by the by. My usual translator turns it into gibberish - more so than usual, that is.

I think at least two still survive in Ireland as well. The thing that always amused me about it (having examined the one at Brockham fairly closely) was that when you put the loco on top of the convertor wagon it must have reversed the direction of travel. In other words to travel forwards you would have had to put the loco reversing lever in reverse.

Cadwch Cymru'n daclus-Taflwch eich ysbwriel yn LLoeger = Keep Wales tidy - throw your rubbish in England.

Ben, how far along with the L&B loco are they now??

Info (not updated as frequently as I'd like): http://whr.bangor.ac.uk/lyd.htm 

Basically, the build is well into its latter stages.

Sheer magic, thanks....love those little engines... I'd missed this one! :thumbup:

---

I find those rebuilt engines quite fascinating. I've often felt that many so-called 'restorations' are more correctly regarded as replicas including original parts.

The amount of work and effort involved is enormous, really a labour of love.



I'd guessed the approximate meaning of the welsh signature from context. My translator was rendering some part of the first phrase as 'heartburn' for some reason, which rather confused the issue. Using translator software is a bit of a black art, sometimes...

I've worked in Wales off and on for a good few years, being in the oil and gas industry, so I'm 'functionally polyglot' to some extent along with several other languages, like quite a few people in that line of work.

I've never attempted to speak it, because I find that welsh speakers would rather speak english than have you speak welsh - it's a bit like japanese, that way.


The Japanese are convinced that no-one can speak japanese except them, and they have the habit of speaking japanese in front of you then replying in english, so if they think you can follow the japanese part it rather flusters them.

Actually japanese is much harder than welsh, because (a) the body language and cultural context are very important and quite alien to Europeans and (b) it is a 'tonal' language and the pronounciation is critical, hence Terry Pratchett's recurring 'your wife is a blue hippo' joke. The real effect of this is simply that you are quite unintelligible if your pronounciation is wrong in quite minor respects.

---

I find those rebuilt engines quite fascinating. I've often felt that many so-called 'restorations' are more correctly regarded as replicas including original parts.

The amount of work and effort involved is enormous, really a labour of love.
....

:offtopic: I've always loved the Furka-Oberalp steam Locos from seeing one in Patrick Whitehouse's Narrow Gauge Album in my youth, and the rebuilds of the engines repatriated from Vietnam to Switzerland for the Furka Bergstrecke are fantastic . An ongoing project...
http://www.furka-bergstrecke.ch/ger/werkstatt_chur/arbeitseinsaetze/index.htm 

Not to mention the Nilgiri in India....

Grahami

---

I think Patrick Whitehouse's book has a lot to answer for, one way and another!

that and Rolt's book about the early years of the Tal-y-Llyn. 'The Little Wonder' is a good read as well, if you ever see a copy in a charity shop somewhere

---

Rolt's book about the early years of the Tal-y-Llyn. 'The Little Wonder' is a good read as well, if you ever see a copy in a charity shop somewhere

I have read that book so many times over the years, a truly beautifully written work.

which one? They are both good in different ways.

personally, I prefer 'Little Wonder' because it contains a lot of hard detail of how the thing was actually done - Alan Pegler's involvement, ad so forth.

---

Oops. It occurs to me that my :offtopic: might have appeared to be referred to the quote - it wasn't, of course, it was referring to my own posting....

Grahami

---

Don't know whether this is of any interest but just stumbled on this. Quadricycle used on narrow gauge railroad. In the early days this took the place of the more modern handcar.

🔗Personal-Album-272-Image-30198[linkphoto]Personal-Album-272-Image-30198[/linkphoto][/link]

---

I am sure there used to be an example of a rail cycle in the Narrow gauge Loco collection at Gloddfa Ganol. I didn't photograph everthing there, but it sneaked into the bottom of this view taken in the 1970's.
🔗Gloddfa-Ganol-Oakeley-1970s-Image-30209[linkphoto]Gloddfa-Ganol-Oakeley-1970s-Image-30209[/linkphoto][/link]
I've just uploaded a few more shots of the locos presetn which were relevant to the quarries.
EDIT: Aha - found another one!
🔗Gloddfa-Ganol-Oakeley-1970s-Image-30210[linkphoto]Gloddfa-Ganol-Oakeley-1970s-Image-30210[/linkphoto][/link]
Grahami

---

Came across a rail cycle visiting Porthmadog not too long ago - http://benfisher.fotopic.net/p44590734.html . I believe it may live not more than a hefty stone's throw from the former Gloddfa Ganol.

There's also a 4' gauge Padarn Railway cycle in the Penrhyn Castle collection, as if the velocipedes weren't mad enough...

which one? They are both good in different ways.

personally, I prefer 'Little Wonder' because it contains a lot of hard detail of how the thing was actually done - Alan Pegler's involvement, ad so forth.

Sorry, I didn't edit the post quote sufficiently! :oops:

I was meaning Railway Adventure.

Railway Adventure, I couldn't think of the name...

how about 'Light Railways of the First World War' by W J K Davies, for generic detail of these machines>

steering back to more mining-history related matters, how about this ;

http://www.irsociety.co.uk/Archives/19/Cornish.htm 

---