Rails in the Road - not tramways

[Fawkes Cat]

I don't think anyone has mentioned Slough Trading Estate yet. I grew up around there and can remember seeing a moving train once (and I am 52).

So does this mean that only Slough and Trafford (both early and large trading estates) were rail linked, rather than individual factories with company sidings?

 

[alangla]

I think they were using tramway tracks to access a works of some sort (possibly power station or gas works).

EDIT, The interweb says it was to transport steel to shipyards, but on the South bank (around Govan).

It’s more likely to be South Street in Whiteinch. Can’t remember the exact details off the top of my head, but each of the North British & Caledonian built lines from the city to Clydebank. One of these is still open and serves Partick, Yoker etc, the other runs nearer the river and is closed west of Exhibition Centre, with a lot of it being a cycle track. The Exhibition Centre to Kelvinhaugh grade separated junction is a BR creation from the 1970s. Anyway, one or other of these lines used the tramways to get wagons from the heavy rail network to industrial premises, using the small electric locos already mentioned.

 

[Altfish]

Interesting - is there a map if it somewhere?

This map is best for such things...
http://www.railmaponline.com/UKIEMap.php
..find Farnborough and have a look at the lines round about it. There are plenty.

 

[Red Onion]

Dundee docks had an extensive system of embedded track; there are still plenty of short isolated sections left. Aberdeen Harbour likewise had a huge system.

There’s still an isolated section of track, with points, just past the ferry terminal in Aberdeen. There’s development work going on though, so not sure how long it will last.

 

[DarloRich]

The strangest one I know of is at Woodlesford. There is a small length of completely isolated track set in the road which I assume is an old level crossing for the old colliery

There used to be loads around the shipyards in Glasgow - I suspect it was the same in most other UK Cities that had a shipbuilding industry.

I suspect this is the case for any town or city with docks let alone a shipbuilding industry. I seem to remember rails in the road on/near the Quayside in Newcastle

 

[Beebman]

When I visited Chicago five years ago I took a trip on the South Shore Line to Michigan City where full-size trains (including double-deck EMUs) run through the streets. There's a load of videos in YouTube, this is a more recent one:

 

[Brian M]

In Newhaven (Sussex) there was a branch from the main line which crossed the river by a joint road/rail swing bridge to get access to the various yards on the west side of the harbour.
Picture from my collection c.1950/60.

 

[itsonlyme]

Ages ago, not long after Noah's Ark was scrapped.

In Southport from Blowick station yard along Crowland Street to Southport Gas Works. Late for School a few mornings due to standing watching.

 

[dazzler]

The strangest one I know of is at Woodlesford. There is a small length of completely isolated track set in the road which I assume is an old level crossing for the old colliery.

This is presumably the one on Eshald Lane? Here?

This was between the colliery sidings at Water Haigh Pit and the quarry to the north east of Eshald Lane. I grew up in a Coal Board house on Rutland Close, overlooking the pit. If I stood on the kitchen table, I could watch the NCB steam shunters in the sidings. We moved out of that house in 1973/4 and those rails were long disused by then. Amazing that they've survived to this day!

 

[DarloRich]

that is the chap! My girlfriend lives round the corner

here is are two pics: Woodlesford by DarloRich2009, on Flickr

Woodlesford by DarloRich2009, on Flickr

 

[duffield]

Why is the Weymouth Quay line nearly always referred to as a tramway then?

My take on it would be that the Weymouth Quay line is a not a tramway in tram terms (#1) but is a tramway in railway terms (#2).

Tramway definition #1: Any rails (street running or not) which principally convey trams, excluding parts of the national railway network conveying tram-trains (i.e. Rotherham)

Tramway definition #2: A part of the rail network which runs along the street in a a street-running tramway style, despite not carrying any trams!

If all terminology was logical, I guess #2 would be called something like a 'tramway style' or 'street running' railway.

 

[etr221]

Why is the Weymouth Quay line nearly always referred to as a tramway then?

I suspect that the line was defined and described as a Tramway in the Act under which it was constructed; and that this term has been used in all formal, and most informal, naming ever since.

 

[randyrippley]

Liverpool docks had a lot, some of the tracks can still be seen along Regent Road
But even small docks had them - for instance Lancaster had sidings in the road alongside the "New Quay" (downstream of Carlisle Bridge). There was a small narrow gauge system there as well, which seems to be undocumented

 

[50039]

This map is best for such things...
http://www.railmaponline.com/UKIEMap.php
..find Farnborough and have a look at the lines round about it. There are plenty.

Wow - thanks - one of those routes goes directly under the building I work in now!

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Another one - Mistley Quay

 

[Roose]

There used to be loads around the shipyards in Glasgow - I suspect it was the same in most other UK Cities that had a shipbuilding industry.

A number of road crossings operated on Barrow Island among the shipyard and engineering works premises.

A narrow, single-carriageway bridge onto the island along the 'Low Road' also carried the main railway track access to the north side of the shipyard embedded in its centre, making concentration essential when cycling over it to avoid wheels in the grooves.

 

[Dr_Paul]

Great Yarmouth had a lengthy quayside line that ran in the road for some of the way. See this map (north), this one (centre) and this one (south). It seems to get tied up a little with the tram, but I don't think they actually connected. There were still rails in the quayside when I visited Yarmouth in the mid-1960s, but I can't recall whether they were still in use.

There was still a rail connection in use to the dock at Lowestoft in the mid-1960s, but this was more a case of the line merely crossing the main road by the station rather than running along a street. I recall that the wagons were pulled in and out of the dock area by an agricultural tractor; my dad told me that when he visited the town around 1950, the LNER four-wheel steam tractors were in use. I would have liked to have seen one of them.

 

[jopsuk]

I found an article with a map of still-operational street running in the USA. The comments note that some are actually a ballasted median (but may have been true street running in the past?)

 

[Wychwood93]

Southampton Docks once had an extensive system - see:
https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=14&lat=50.9044&lon=-1.4082&layers=10&b=1

Canute Road crossing - near the former Southampton Terminus - sees some use still.

 

[ac6000cw]

I found an article with a map of still-operational street running in the USA. The comments note that some are actually a ballasted median (but may have been true street running in the past?)

Years ago I visited Bellevue, Iowa - one of the places on that list - and watched a long freight (about 130 freight cars, I think) rumble rumble through town - it's actually mostly ballasted track in the highway median but with the tarmac right up to the ends of the sleepers - Google streetview: https://www.google.com/maps/@42.258...=77.30806&pitch=0&thumbfov=100!7i13312!8i6656 - quite interesting to watch, as long as you're not in a hurry to get from one side of town to the other! The line itself is a secondary mainline.

Also alongside the town is a very large weir and lock (about 35m x 200m) on the Mississippi river - the river barges are huge in that part of world.

Most of those 'mainline' street running sections came about of course because the railway arrived first then the town grew up around it, effectively marooning the track in the middle of 'main street' in some cases.

 

[OliverS]

Another one - Mistley Quay

I remember wagons on the quay at Mistley. I think there was an 08 tucked away somewhere to shift them around. I seem to recall that the railway was mentioned in one of the court cases about turning part of the quay into a village green.

 

[ac6000cw]

The Wisbech and Upwell Tramway was pretty close to being (in part) a street-running railway, which survived until 1966 for freight - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisbech_and_Upwell_Tramway

 

[ChiefPlanner]

I remember wagons on the quay at Mistley. I think there was an 08 tucked away somewhere to shift them around. I seem to recall that the railway was mentioned in one of the court cases about turning part of the quay into a village green.

The 08 used to clonk down from Manningtree , maybe having shunted the chemical works at Brantham. Not much traffic at either. There was some confusion over the private siding agreement at Mistley , resolved in the end without legislation.

 

[PeterC]

I don't think anyone has mentioned Slough Trading Estate yet. I grew up around there and can remember seeing a moving train once (and I am 52).

So does this mean that only Slough and Trafford (both early and large trading estates) were rail linked, rather than individual factories with company sidings?

I don't know about Trafford but the original intention at Slough was to provide a fully serviced site so it had its own railway network serving the factory units. When I worked there in the 90s there were still bits of track visible along the front of some units and a couple of others with very obvious loading docks for rail wagons. The link to the main line was by a reserved track that was later used for a pipeline.

 

[mailbyrail]

I worked in Great Yarmouth in 1974-5 and the quay to the South of Southtown Bridge alongside the Town Hall was still rail served and used occasionally. I remember MCO wagons of scrap being unloaded for loading onto a ship, the wagons were effectively parked in the street on the quayside.

 

[Cletus]

Trains used to run along along Dover sea front (until 1964).

Used to have man with a red flag walking in front of it to stop people parking cars.

(not my pictures, I'm much too young!)

 

[alexl92]

The track gauge on the Glasgow tramways was slightly narrower than standard so rail wagons could run on the tips of their flanges (which are closer together than tramway flanges). I assume Huddersfield and possibly others were the same. Blackpool-Fleetwood also carried heavy rail wagons but not on the street section.

I never knew Huddersfield had a tram system. Are there any photos or maps? Did heavy rail stock ever run on it?

 

[matchmaker]

It’s more likely to be South Street in Whiteinch. Can’t remember the exact details off the top of my head, but each of the North British & Caledonian built lines from the city to Clydebank. One of these is still open and serves Partick, Yoker etc, the other runs nearer the river and is closed west of Exhibition Centre, with a lot of it being a cycle track. The Exhibition Centre to Kelvinhaugh grade separated junction is a BR creation from the 1970s. Anyway, one or other of these lines used the tramways to get wagons from the heavy rail network to industrial premises, using the small electric locos already mentioned.

It wasn't South Street as it had no tram service, but will be Govan Road on the south side of the river. I was brought up in Scotstoun and can recall a train on the South Street tracks ("Whiteinch Tramway" was the official name), but it was pulled by a steam shunting loco.

 

[Southsider]

It wasn't South Street as it had no tram service, but will be Govan Road on the south side of the river. I was brought up in Scotstoun and can recall a train on the South Street tracks ("Whiteinch Tramway" was the official name), but it was pulled by a steam shunting loco.

I think it was Stobcross Street, now covered over by the Clydeside Expressway that was the best example of street rail lines in Glasgow. Cars had narrow tyres in those days so you had to avoid getting caught in the tracks - particularly amusing when a Reliant Robin was misdirected by the points!

 

[Calthrop]

On the general topic, there were railway-operated tramways at Great Yarmouth and IIRC Lowestoft. The LNER had the largest number of "tram engines" (think Toby!) in the UK, complete with side sheets to cover the motion and cowcatchers (I'm sure that's not the right term in the UK!), and BR had diesel successors.

(My bolding) -- "off at a tangent"; but to the best of my knowledge, "cowcatcher" is the correct and preferred term in the UK for this locomotive feature. The alternative word best known to me is "pilot"; but in my perception, that word is used in North America (where that appurtenance was far more common than in these islands) more than it is here.

Curiosity moved me to Google "cowcatcher"; doing which, didn't prove very illuminating. One particular "hit" claimed to furnish 89(!) synonyms for "cowcatcher"; but a fairly quick look at the item was enough to show that the objective was, basically, fooling-around. Three words given and marked as "close synonyms" were "pilot", "fender", and "buffer" (re the last, railway enthusiasts' response will be "I think not"); after that, things got into wild and arcane military-and-armourers' realms, and with nowhere near the promised 89 words actually in evidence.