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South Wales Mineral Railway
The South Wales Mineral Railway was a railway built to serve collieries in the upper Afan Valley, and bring their output to a dock at Briton Ferry, in South Wales. It opened in stages, in 1861 and 1863. It was built on the broad gauge and had steep gradients, including a rope worked incline near Briton Ferry. Always short of money, it was worked by a coal company for some years and then by the Great Western Railway from 1908. It was absorbed by that company in 1923. A tunnel collapse in 1947 closed the western section of the network, but by then it was connected to an alternative route via Port Talbot. A local passenger service was operated between 1918 and 1930, continuing for the use of miners until 1964. The line closed completely in 1970. Beginnings Towards the end of the 18th century, collieries began to be developed in the Cymmer district were opened. Coal was carried to wharves on the Bristol Channel on the backs of pack animals, although a stone-block sleeper tramroad, ...
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River Afan
, name_etymology = , image = The_Afon_Afan,_Cymmer_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1001060.jpg , image_size = , image_caption = The Afan near Cymmer , map = , map_size = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = , pushpin_map_size = , pushpin_map_caption= , subdivision_type1 = Country , subdivision_name1 = Wales , subdivision_type2 = , subdivision_name2 = , subdivision_type3 = Counties , subdivision_name3 = , subdivision_type4 = , subdivision_name4 = , subdivision_type5 = Towns , subdivision_name5 = Blaengwynfi, Cymmer, Cwmafan, Port Talbot, , length = , width_min = , width_avg = , width_max = , depth_min = , depth_avg = , depth_max = , discharge1_location= , discharge1_min = , discharge1_avg = , discharge1_max = , source1 = , source1_location = Mynydd Llangeinwyr , sou ...
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Railways Act 1921
The Railways Act 1921 (c. 55), also known as the Grouping Act, was an Act of Parliament enacted by the British government and intended to stem the losses being made by many of the country's 120 railway companies, by "grouping" them into four large companies dubbed the " Big Four". This was intended to move the railways away from internal competition, and retain some of the benefits which the country had derived from a government-controlled railway during and after the Great War of 1914–1918. The provisions of the Act took effect from the start of 1923. History The British railway system had been built up by more than a hundred railway companies, large and small, and often, particularly locally, in competition with each other. The parallel railways of the East Midlands and the rivalry between the South Eastern Railway and the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway at Hastings were two examples of such local competition. During the First World War the railways were under st ...
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Tank Locomotive
A tank locomotive or tank engine is a steam locomotive that carries its water in one or more on-board water tanks, instead of a more traditional tender. Most tank engines also have bunkers (or fuel tanks) to hold fuel; in a tender-tank locomotive a tender holds some or all of the fuel, and may hold some water also. There are several different types of tank locomotive, distinguished by the position and style of the water tanks and fuel bunkers. The most common type has tanks mounted either side of the boiler. This type originated about 1840 and quickly became popular for industrial tasks, and later for shunting and shorter-distance main line duties. Tank locomotives have advantages and disadvantages compared to traditional locomotives that required a separate tender to carry needed water and fuel. History Origins The first tank locomotive was the ''Novelty'' that ran at the Rainhill Trials in 1829. It was an example of a ''Well Tank''. However, the more common fo ...
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Cornwall Minerals Railway
The Cornwall Minerals Railway owned and operated a network of of standard gauge railway lines in central Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It started by taking over an obsolescent horse-operated tramway in 1862, and it improved and extended it, connecting Newquay and Par Harbours, and Fowey. Having expended considerable capital, it was hurt by a collapse in mineral extraction due to a slump in prices. Despite its title, it operated a passenger service between Newquay and Fowey. After a period in bankruptcy it returned to normal financial arrangements and acquired the moribund Lostwithiel and Fowey line. In 1896 it sold its line to the Great Western Railway. Its main passenger line from Par to Newquay is still in use as the Atlantic Coast Line, and also carries some mineral traffic, but the Par to Fowey line has been converted to a private road. Before the CMR Treffry Joseph Austen (1782 - 1850) of Fowey inherited considerable lands and mineral resources in central Cornw ...
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Newquay And Cornwall Junction Railway
The Newquay and Cornwall Junction Railway was a broad gauge railway intended to link the Cornwall Railway with the horse-worked Newquay Railway. It opened a short section to Nanpean in 1869, the remainder being built by the Cornwall Minerals Railway who took over the company in 1874. Its main traffic has always been china clay. Chronology * 1864 Newquay and Cornwall Junction Railway Act * 1869 Line opened * 1874 Taken over by the Cornwall Minerals Railway * 1892 Converted to standard gauge * 1896 Amalgamated with Great Western Railway History Joseph Treffry had opened a tramway to connect mines and pits in the Hendra and St Dennis area of Cornwall in 1849. His tramway was horse-operated and led to Pontsmill, where transshipment was necessary to the Par Canal, also built by Treffry, for onward conveyance to Par Harbour. The practical limitations of his line were insignificant at first, but as time passed were seen to inhibit trade. The Cornwall Railway The Co ...
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Bristol And Exeter Railway
The Bristol & Exeter Railway (B&ER) was an English railway company formed to connect Bristol and Exeter. It was built on the broad gauge and its engineer was Isambard Kingdom Brunel. It opened in stages between 1841 and 1844. It was allied with the Great Western Railway (GWR), which built its main line between London and Bristol, and in time formed part of a through route between London and Cornwall. It became involved in the gauge wars, a protracted and expensive attempt to secure territory against rival companies supported by the London and South Western Railway (LSWR) which used the narrow gauge, later referred to as ''standard gauge''. At first it contracted with the GWR for that company to work the line, avoiding the expense of acquiring locomotives, but after that arrangement expired in 1849, the B&ER operated its own line. It opened a number of branches within the general area it served: to Clevedon, Cheddar, Wells, Weston-super-Mare, Chard, Yeovil and Tiverton. The B ...
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Chippenham, Wiltshire
Chippenham is a market town in northwest Wiltshire, England. It lies northeast of Bath, west of London, and is near the Cotswolds Area of Natural Beauty. The town was established on a crossing of the River Avon and some form of settlement is believed to have existed there since before Roman times. It was a royal vill, and probably a royal hunting lodge, under Alfred the Great. The town continued to grow when the Great Western Railway arrived in 1841. The town had a population of 36,548 in 2021. Geography Location Chippenham is in western Wiltshire, at a prominent crossing of the River Avon, between the Marlborough Downs to the east, the southern Cotswolds to the north and west and Salisbury Plain to the southeast. The town is surrounded by sparsely populated countryside and there are several woodlands in or very near the town, such as Bird's Marsh, Vincients Wood and Briars Wood. Suburbs Suburbs include Cepen Park (North & South), Hardenhuish, Monkton, Lowden, Pewsham, ...
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Roland Brotherhood
Rowland Brotherhood (or sometimes Roland Brotherhood) was a British engineer. He was born in Middlesex in 1812 and died in Bristol in 1883. He married Priscilla Penton in 1835 and they had 14 children, one also called Rowland who played cricket for Gloucestershire, another called Peter. Most were engineers. Career From 1835 he took on a number of contracts for building parts of the Great Western Railway (GWR). By 1838 he was resident in Reading, Berkshire, and continued to do contract work for the GWR. In 1841 he moved to Chippenham, Wiltshire, bought Orwell House on New Road, and took over a blacksmith's business. Soon after, he began production of railway fittings and developed an iron works on land north of Chippenham station. The business expanded in the 1850s and 1860s, with more land purchased to the north and east. Contract work for the GWR continued until 1861 when there was a dispute with that company; from 1861 to 1869 Brotherhood built components for railways an ...
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0-4-2ST
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, represents the wheel arrangement with no leading wheels, four powered and coupled driving wheels on two axles and two trailing wheels on one axle. While the first locomotives of this wheel arrangement were tender engines, the configuration was later often used for tank engines, which is noted by adding letter suffixes to the configuration, such as for a conventional side-tank locomotive, for a saddle-tank locomotive, for a well-tank locomotive and for a rack-equipped tank locomotive. The arrangement is sometimes known as Olomana after a Hawaiian 0-4-2 locomotive of 1883. Overview The earliest recorded locomotives were three goods engines built by Robert Stephenson and Company for the Stanhope and Tyne Railway in 1834. The first locomotive built in Germany in 1838, the '' Saxonia'', was also an . In the same year Todd, Kitson & Laird built two examples for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, one of ...
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0-6-0
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, represents the wheel arrangement of no leading wheels, six powered and coupled driving wheels on three axles and no trailing wheels. This was the most common wheel arrangement used on both tender and tank locomotives in versions with both inside and outside cylinders. In the United Kingdom, the Whyte notation of wheel arrangement was also often used for the classification of electric and diesel-electric locomotives with side-rod coupled driving wheels. Under the UIC classification, popular in Europe, this wheel arrangement is written as C if the wheels are coupled with rods or gears, or Co if they are independently driven, the latter usually being electric and diesel-electric locomotives. Overview History The 0-6-0 configuration was the most widely used wheel arrangement for both tender and tank steam locomotives. The type was also widely used for diesel switchers (shunters). Because they lack leading a ...
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Standard Gauge
A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), International gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge and European gauge in Europe, and SGR in East Africa. It is the most widely used track gauge around the world, with approximately 55% of the lines in the world using it. All high-speed rail lines use standard gauge except those in Russia, Finland, and Uzbekistan. The distance between the inside edges of the rails is defined to be 1435 mm except in the United States and on some heritage British lines, where it is defined in U.S. customary/Imperial units as exactly "four feet eight and one half inches" which is equivalent to 1435.1mm. History As railways developed and expanded, one of the key issues was the track gauge (the distance, or width, between the inner sides of the rails) to be used. Different railways used different gauges, and where rails of different gauge met – ...
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Manning Wardle
Manning Wardle was a steam locomotive manufacturer based in Hunslet, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. Precursor companies The city of Leeds was one of the earliest centres of locomotive building; Matthew Murray built the first commercially successful steam locomotive, ''Salamanca'', in Holbeck, Leeds, in 1812. By 1856, a number of manufacturers had sprung up in the city, including Kitson and Company, and E. B. Wilson and Company, later The Railway Foundry after 1848. Manning Wardle The Railway Foundry (E.B Wilson from 1838-48) operated in Leeds until 1858. At least some of the company's designs and some materials were purchased by Manning Wardle & Company, who located their Boyne Engine Works in Jack Lane in the Hunslet district of the city. Steam locomotive construction commenced on the site in 1859. Within the next few years, two other companies, the Hunslet Engine Company and Hudswell, Clarke & Company also opened premises in Jack Lane. There was a good deal of st ...
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