Railway General Knowledge.

[Calthrop]

With things having been "stalled" for some three days, I considered there to be no shame in consulting Google. Whence: the 7-and-a-quarter-inch gauge Sanday Light Railway, on the island of Sanday, Orkney. An ill-fated concern which was open to the public for only a few months in 2006.

 

[backontrack]

Correct! How on earth did you know? I have to admit I though that would be really widely known on here.

Anyway, your floor.

 

[Calthrop]

Thanks. Short-and-sweet:

What was "the oldest, shortest, and widest transcontinental route"?

 

[Cowley]

Is that the railway that runs next to the Panama Canal? Pretty sure it runs through the South and North American continents and it can't be very long as the canal's only about 50 miles long

 

[Calthrop]

Correct -- your floor. The Panama Railroad: opened 1855, way earlier than the Canal: crossing the North / Central / South American continental land-mass at its very narrowest point. Inaugurated by US entrepreneurship and finance, was from opening until standard-gauging in 2001, 5ft. gauge (one of various broad gauges common in the USA in the earlier decades of railroads there).

Panama Railroad's "widest" status worldwide, became disputable after completion of the Trans-Siberian; but remained supreme as regards the Americas.

 

[Cowley]

Thank you. Can't really think of anything now so.
Open floor.

 

[TheEdge]

What is the earliest known "railway" in the world?

 

[Cowley]

I think I've heard Saxony 1640 somewhere? I may have dreamt it but I'm going to say it anyway. I've got two quiz questions right in the last couple of days, I'm going for the hat-rick.

 

[theageofthetra]

Very hard to define but one of the earliest known and documented was used to move boats on parallel grooves cut into stone over what would later became the Corinth canal. There are claims to even earlier ones in parts of China - again to portage boats and also in Egypt.

 

[TheEdge]

theageofthetra wins the prize. Diolkos near Corinth has what is believed to be the oldest "railway" used to move boats over land.

 

[Cowley]

Blazed it over the bar

 

[Calthrop]

Blazed it over the bar

They saw your Johnny-come-lately 17th-century Germany, and raised you ancient Greece...

 

[Cowley]

They saw your Johnny-come-lately 17th-century Germany, and raised you ancient Greece...

 

[theageofthetra]

There have been some odd forms of motive power over the years but one railway managed in the the 1830's to go all 'Tesla' & IEP and combine in one vehicle a sail/horse hybrid. Where did it operate?

 

[Calthrop]

There have been some odd forms of motive power over the years but one railway managed in the the 1830's to go all 'Tesla' & IEP and combine in one vehicle a sail/horse hybrid. Where did it operate?

Would it have been on the Oystermouth Railway (forerunner of the Swansea & Mumbles)?

 

[theageofthetra]

Good guess but no. They used both forms of power over the years but not on the same vehicle.

 

[Cowley]

Was it somewhere in America like near Washington maybe?

 

[theageofthetra]

No in the UK.

 

[Cowley]

I've seen a drawing or picture of this but I just can't dredge it up from the recesses of my brain. Going to try for somewhere flat and windy. Lincolnshire?

 

[Peter Mugridge]

A dim memory recalls reading about something involving a sail and the Ffestinog when it was freshly built...? Presumably they used horses as well at that time, at least in the yards...?

 

[krus_aragon]

A dim memory recalls reading about something involving a sail and the Ffestinog when it was freshly built...? Presumably they used horses as well at that time, at least in the yards...?

That's a good stab. Sail could have been useful in crossing the cob from Porthmadog to Boston Lodge, then (assuming it's an up train) horsepower to take the train the rest of the way up to Blaenau. The journey back down, of course, would be be gravity operation.

 

[theageofthetra]

All good guesses but not them. Spooners sail wagon was I believe just his personal play thing. The Spurnhead line was normally only sail operated. This line had a horse trotting behind the sail vehicle in case the wind dropped and was its 'normal'(!) mode of operations.

You need to head further north for this comical railway.

 

[Marton]

Dundee to Newtyle Railway?

 

[theageofthetra]

We have a winner. I hope the Dundee & comics reference helped! Your floor.

 

[Marton]

Thank you.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Here goes.

Which station closed by the deviation of a line was replaced by a station with restricted access, and where has one of its platforms gone?

 

[martinsh]

Bedford St johns ?

 

[Marton]

Bedford St johns ?

Not that one.

 

[theageofthetra]

Smallbrook junction?

 

[Marton]

All too far south.

 

[steamybrian]

Thank you.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Here goes.

Which station closed by the deviation of a line was replaced by a station with restricted access, and where has one of its platforms gone?

Warrenby Halt
Platform is now at Newtondale on the NYMR