Oswestry Update

I wonder if you really could make such a track for multiple gauges..... I can see my next long plane journey being taken up working out the clearances and the optimisation to see if it is possible.... The suggestion of 3'6" has got me dusting off my address book from my days in South Africa to see if they have a spare loco.... Or would MOSI miss the GL... I fear that a lie down and more medicine is on the cards.

 

Yes I have seen a couple of pictures of the BP track but I wonder about the maximum number of 'recognised' gauges are that you could make with the minimum number of rails. One for a day when I really can't do anything else, though these days I get distracted by the inflight entertainment as there is just too much on offer, gone are the days of one film projected in the cabin with sound on a grotty pair of tubed headphones... Next you'll be telling me I can take my own railway films and watch them on my own personal seat back screen.... I used to be more productive on long flights; writing reports and preparing mails... Now I arrive relaxed and not so stressed.

 

So did Kerr Stuart (according to Tom Rolt, a sometime Premium Apprentice at Stoke-on-Trent)

 

How about adding in Monorail or Latigue and Broad Gauge?

 

Been done, been done and been done! ...... You want one of these:

Image courtesy web.onetel.net.uk

And in answer to the obvious question : The Bennie Railplane .... that's what! And from the (endlessly fascinating) British Pathé archive (thanks YouTube!):

 

Wuppertal style?

 

..... and then some!

 

Meiningen Works still has and they normally have a narrow gauge loco on it on September Open Days

 

Hunslet used to have one. I understand that there was one relatively common gauge they couldn't do, though; one of the Irish ones; 3'-0" or 5'-3". I can't remember which but probably 5'-3" as there were a lot of NCB underground locos at 3'-0" gauge.

 

Irish 'Irish gauge' Hunslets were pretty thin on the ground (my own favourite was a very small inside cylindered 2-6-0T "Argadeen", supplied to the Timoleague and Courtmacsherry Light Railway, a branch off a branch to the south coast of Co.Cork), with Beyer Peacock doing much better both sides of the border. There were considerable mileages of 5'-3" gauge in South America and Australia of course.

 

More on this including construction.

 

@oddsocks I was totally unaware of that clip, so many thanks for digging it out. The manufacturing segments in factories really bring home the depressed state of industry at that time. This scheme, which to us looks almost too fantastic to be believed, might well have seemed like a possible lifeline to struggling steel and engineering companies, however remote the chances of success. Recall that both Kerr-Stuart and Kitson & Co (to name but two) went under during this period.

Could "Railplane" be seen as an attempt at "Wuppertal MkII"? It certainly shares several characteristics of the Schwebebahn, including the aesthetic appeal of it's 'permanent way' (!) though not it's inherent means of coping with curves. Gerry Anderson's suspended monorails from childrens TV's 1960's classic 'Thunderbirds' look more convincing in that department!

Image courtesy of mastermodels.co.uk

A key point of Bennie's idea was that installations be over the route of existing tracks, which would continue in operation for conventional low speed traffic. From memory, future service speeds of around 300mph were envisaged (I don't know where the 120mph quoted in Wikipedia comes from, possibly the figure for the test car itself), though quite what projected system capacity was, I don't know.

The Wikipedia article mentions 48 seats per Railcar, which seems to suggest an capital payback period way north of acceptable, even with sky high ticket prices as service intervals couldn't conceivably come close to matching those of a conventional line. Multiply the number of seats by 20 and it still wouldn't have been a money spinner.

The Pathé shots of the "20's futuristic" vehicle reveal construction was closer to an airship frame with a conventional steel chassis than the monocoque design the finished product seems to suggest. With that kind of weight, quite how the system would have coped with an emergency stop would be interesting to know, though I suspect I can guess the answer.

Though Railplane would definitlely make for a unique sideshow, it'd be a rather less than cost effective one and it has to be said that present day MagLev developments look one whole bunch more promising than the orphan love child of Gustav Eiffel and Jules Verne

The first time I was aware of this project was an article, aound 40 years ago, in the Merioneth Mercury (house journal of the Merioneth Railway Society). For a while, I wasn't sure whether it was a Colin Binnie/Ted Wade wind up ..... both those gentlemen were superb modelmakers with an aptitude for pre-Photoshop jiggery-pokery and the requisite wicked streak to pull off such a hoax, though in Colin's case at least, you'd have thought butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. He would have been a formidable poker player!

If there's any more to be said about Mr Bennie's novel system, 'spose we'd better give the subject it's own home, thank the Oswestry folks for their kind patience and let them have their thread back!

 

There was a good piece on the Railplane in Backtrack a few years ago

 

Work has gone on at Oswestry and other locations but some good news is that we have finally uncovered the track at the North end of the station. This had been hidden under a growing pile of sleepers for the past few(!) months.
The last lot were processed in filthy weather this week and will be sent down the line for the relaying work.

Also a note in the diary for the reopening of Oswestry South Signal Box on the 12th May which will be combined with a Volunteers day so you can come and see what is going on.

https://ilvaporista.blogspot.co.uk/

 

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I hope to get back to the blog from this week, much has gone on whilst I have been otherwise detained on family matters. The sleeper pile has gone but there is that much nostalgia that we are sending search parties out into the undergrowth to look for ones we missed. The coach continues to make progress and the digging continues. The 'Big Dig' has been delayed but we are still active on all fronts.

 

As an added bonus this Saturday will see a vintage bus service between Gobowen and Owestry in conjunction with our Volunteer's Day and signal box rededication.
http://www.bordercountiesadvertizer.co.uk/news/16209042.Gobowen_station_hosts_pop-up_shops/

More reasons to pop along and see what we are up to.

 

I've copied the flyer for this weekend on to the blog and there are also the bus times as well for a trip round all three sites.