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A railway line that in connected land but completely isolated

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JBuchananGB

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Makes me think of the Waterloo & City Line. Not connected to anything else. Rolling stock lowered from above by crane.
 
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341o2

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likewise the Redruth & Chasewater was 4' as well so I didn't mention it
 

Calthrop

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Peterhead prison railway fits this one I think.

I'd never heard of this one before; Googled it, and I agree -- it would seem fully to fit the bill. It appears to have been a truly strange rail set-up in this little corner of Scotland: two branches of the same GNSR sub-system, terminating three miles from each other at most, at Peterhead and Boddam (I'd imagine that in the rail network's formative days, the idea of linking the two lines up at their terminal end must have been entertained -- but for some reason it never happened). Then there was another line, the Prison Railway, also standard-gauge -- admittedly, for a limited special purpose -- occupying most of the gap between the two termini, but not physically linked to the public lines at either end.

The mind goes to the question of whether non-criminal railway enthusiasts were ever able to get permission to travel on the Prison Railway...
 

PaulLothian

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The mind goes to the question of whether non-criminal railway enthusiasts were ever able to get permission to travel on the Prison Railway...
... and to whether any criminal rail enthusiasts were quite as enthusiastic after using it in the course of a hard day's work!
 

Calthrop

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... and to whether any criminal rail enthusiasts were quite as enthusiastic after using it in the course of a hard day's work!

Well, there was Eric Lomax, author of The Railway Man -- taken prisoner by the Japanese in World War II, and put to work on building the Burma -- Siam railway: a lifelong railfan, before that experience, and also after it. That's dedication !
 

theageofthetra

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Wasn't there a railway or tramway in Dartford which transported those with contagious diseases (cholera?) from a pier on the Thames up to a hospital?
 

John Webb

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Wasn't there a railway or tramway in Dartford which transported those with contagious diseases (cholera?) from a pier on the Thames up to a hospital?
Yes - the Long Reach and Joyce Green Smallpox Isolation hospitals - see https://maps.nls.uk/view/102342320 for a 1920s map showing the tramway. I've no idea what the gauge was, but it was certainly running in 'isolation'!
 

Ken H

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I was going to suggest funicular railways but are any standard gauge? Bridgenorth isnt.
 

mailbyrail

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The prison museum in Peterhead has a restored prisoner wagon from the railway - also they recount a story of how one convict somehow missed the train back from the quarry and walked back to the prison following the railway tracks. When you consider the guards were armed with instructions to shoot to kill escapees, perhaps not so surprising he returned. A fascinating and sobering museum.
 

Calthrop

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The prison museum in Peterhead has a restored prisoner wagon from the railway - also they recount a story of how one convict somehow missed the train back from the quarry and walked back to the prison following the railway tracks. When you consider the guards were armed with instructions to shoot to kill escapees, perhaps not so surprising he returned. A fascinating and sobering museum.

One gathers that very often, prisoners regard escaping as just not worth it -- far likelier to bring them grief, than deliverance ! Unless one is a prisoner-of-war, in which case it's an honourable duty: success is very unlikely, but that's basically not the point...
 

341o2

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would the Ryde pier tramway satisfy the conditions laid out by the OP?
 

xotGD

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There must have been some wagonways on Tyneside that were standalone operations.
 

mailbyrail

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Wantage tramway was connected the GWR sidings at Wantage Road and conveyed mainline goods wagons
 

MotCO

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If these railways were truly isolated from the rest of the rail system, how did trains and carriages find their way onto the tracks?
 

Gostav

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If these railways were truly isolated from the rest of the rail system, how did trains and carriages find their way onto the tracks?
By road, just like today's heritage railway.
 

theageofthetra

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Yes - the Long Reach and Joyce Green Smallpox Isolation hospitals - see https://maps.nls.uk/view/102342320 for a 1920s map showing the tramway. I've no idea what the gauge was, but it was certainly running in 'isolation'!


That's it. Thanks for sharing that map, it certainly looked like quite an extensive system. I suspect it may also have transported coal up from the river to the hospital boilers too. Are there any more sources or books on what must have been an interesting system. Given how contagious the disease was I wonder if patients operated the railway too?
 

341o2

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By road, just like today's heritage railway.
When the Bideford Westward Ho!and Appledore railway closed, temporary tracks were laid along roads between the two railways. All the equipment at Tregantle came by barge, some removed by road
 

krus_aragon

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If these railways were truly isolated from the rest of the rail system, how did trains and carriages find their way onto the tracks?
A similar question arises when you think of the earliest of railways. Stephenson built his Rocket in Newcastle, but there was no railway to take it to the Rainhill Trials. Other competitors had similar distances to travel, too. Canal and/or sea was the preferred option back then, i.i.r.c., with road transport for the last miles where required.
 

Calthrop

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When the Bideford Westward Ho!and Appledore railway closed, temporary tracks were laid along roads between the two railways.

A bit of an odd aspect to me, of this episode; is that it was done only to take away the railway's three locomotives -- and was seemingly carried out in a colossal hurry, with apparently less than optimal planning. The railway's track was, in the interests of the war effort, lifted quite shortly after closure, and the rails reclaimed: to accomplish this, it would have seemed to make sense to leave at least one of the locos on the line, to work demolition trains -- but all three locos were run along the temporary track and sent off, over the two days (29th and 30th March 1917) immediately following the line's last day in service. (The rolling stock was not required for war purposes, and was left in place.) Which raises the question of how the track was lifted -- borrowing a loco from the LSWR, which would itself have to be got somehow to and from the "wrong" side of the river? Using horse-drawn rail trolleys? (One figures that the lifted rails were sent away by sea.)

The frantic haste as regards sending the locos away -- one wonders why. I don't think it is on record anywhere, that there were acute fears that if the BWH!&A's three little Hunslet 2-4-2Ts did not show up at the Front with great promptitude, the Germans would speedily take Paris and France would sue for peace. Cynics have long opined that anything which the British Army has to do with, is liable to feature bungling and screw-ups...
 

341o2

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When the Redruth & Chasewater closed in 1915, two years later a 1914 order incorporating its wagons into the wartime pooling scheme was rescinded - being 4' gauge, the R&C stock would have been useless elsewhere
 
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