• Our new ticketing site is now live! Using either this or the original site (both powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!

Railway General Knowledge.

DerekC

Established Member
Joined
26 Oct 2015
Messages
2,432
Location
Hampshire (nearly a Hog)
Well, I don't suppose there is much 7ft gauge, but I guess that wouldn't meet the "scope and range" criterion. I am going to guess the "Russian Gauge" of 5ft (1520mm) as I can't recall Russia having much influence in South America in colonial times.
 
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R

RailUK Forums

Calthrop

Established Member
Joined
6 Dec 2015
Messages
3,689
Yes -- "first and foremost" of those not represented there, is indeed 5ft. / 1520mm. There is a kind of "might-have-been" in this issue -- but wanting 5ft. as first candidate, I took steps to cut that one out. The Panama Railroad (parelleling, and much antedating, the Canal) was 5ft. gauge (inaugurated by U.S. interests in the 1850s: in the early decades of U.S. rail history, 5ft. gauge was quite popular in parts there, though it didn't last) -- Panama Railroad was 5ft., until converted to four-eight-and-a-half in 2000 -- 01. And Panama was part of Colombia until 1903: desirous, perhaps a bit meanly, of excluding P.R. and the 5ft., I took care in the framing geography-wise, of my question.

Senor, the next question is yours to set.
 

DerekC

Established Member
Joined
26 Oct 2015
Messages
2,432
Location
Hampshire (nearly a Hog)
Gracias. What railway, entirely within in the London area, had a locomotive fleet of three Pacifics, all different, but all designed by the same person?
 

Cowley

Forum Staff
Staff Member
Global Moderator
Joined
15 Apr 2016
Messages
18,897
Location
Devon
Gracias. What railway, entirely within in the London area, had a locomotive fleet of three Pacifics?

The LTS (of course it isn’t, the QI klaxon is going off right now)?
 

DerekC

Established Member
Joined
26 Oct 2015
Messages
2,432
Location
Hampshire (nearly a Hog)
The LTS (of course it isn’t, the QI klaxon is going off right now)?
Not the LTS (what's the QI klaxon?). Perhaps I should have made clear that the Pacifics were the railway's only motive power.
Wild guess: Ruislip Lido?
Not that one - they seem to have a whole range of motive power, but no Pacifics. Nearer to central London.
 

Calthrop

Established Member
Joined
6 Dec 2015
Messages
3,689
I thought "British Empire Exhibition 1924 -- 5?"; but that was at Wembley, wasn't it?
 

DerekC

Established Member
Joined
26 Oct 2015
Messages
2,432
Location
Hampshire (nearly a Hog)
I thought "British Empire Exhibition 1924 -- 5?"; but that was at Wembley, wasn't it?
The British Empire Exhibition was certainly at Wembley but didn't it have the "Never-Stop Railway"? Anyway not that one, but you are thinking in the right direction (in terms of the context of the railway, not geographically!).
 

yoyothehobo

Member
Joined
21 Aug 2015
Messages
853
The festival of Britain in 1951?

Did it have its own miniature railway with pacifics then?

As wasnt that on the South Bank?
 

DerekC

Established Member
Joined
26 Oct 2015
Messages
2,432
Location
Hampshire (nearly a Hog)
The festival of Britain in 1951?

Did it have its own miniature railway with pacifics then?

As wasnt that on the South Bank?
You are pretty much there. The 15'' gauge "Far Tottering and Oyster Creek Branch Railway" was part of the Festival of Britain but actually located in what was then Battersea Pleasure Gardens. The three locomotives were diesel powered (sort of) steam outline 4-6-2s designed by Rowland Emett. "Nellie" was a (kind of) tender saddle tank, "Neptune" had been reconstructed (fictionally) from a paddle steamer and "Wild Goose" looked as though it had had a collision with an airship. It ran in its original form for rather more than a year and was then rebuilt in more conventional form in a different part of the park. Sadly it was the site of a head-on single line collision, which although it resulted in a fatality and a number of injuries, doesn't seem to have merited attention from HMRI.

There is a very short Movietone video of it in operation here:


Your fantasy line to take!
 

yoyothehobo

Member
Joined
21 Aug 2015
Messages
853
You are pretty much there. The 15'' gauge "Far Tottering and Oyster Creek Branch Railway" was part of the Festival of Britain but actually located in what was then Battersea Pleasure Gardens. The three locomotives were diesel powered (sort of) steam outline 4-6-2s designed by Rowland Emett. "Nellie" was a (kind of) tender saddle tank, "Neptune" had been reconstructed (fictionally) from a paddle steamer and "Wild Goose" looked as though it had had a collision with an airship. It ran in its original form for rather more than a year and was then rebuilt in more conventional form in a different part of the park. Sadly it was the site of a head-on single line collision, which although it resulted in a fatality and a number of injuries, doesn't seem to have merited attention from HMRI.

There is a very short Movietone video of it in operation here:


Your fantasy line to take!
Following on from the above question.

The locomotive Neptune would become Prince Charles at which other 15in narrow gauge railway?
 

Peter Mugridge

Veteran Member
Joined
8 Apr 2010
Messages
17,813
Location
Epsom
It's a summit somewhere south of Inverness on the Highland Main Line, but I can't remember the name of it except that it's awful to spell...
 

Top