Railway General Knowledge.

[D6130]

70047

Correct. Your turn to take the regulator!

 

[RDP]

Another easy one while on the subject of locomotive naming.

Only four LMS class 5 4-6-0s were named. Which four?

 

[D6130]

5153, 5154, 5156 & 5157?

 

[RDP]

5153, 5154, 5156 & 5157?

Three out of four.

That's good enough for me.

They were (BR numbers):
45154 Lanarkshire Yeomanry
45156 Ayrshire Yeomanry
45157 The Glasgow Highlander
45158 Glasgow Yeomanry.

Back to you.

 

[D6130]

Thanks! Just going to bed now and too tired to think of a new question, so....open floor!

 

[Calthrop]

A quite celebrated (highly non-technical) railway author wrote -- in a brief "glancing" mention -- of an island which "lost one of its railways through fire, a very odd way to lose a railway indeed". Which island, and which railway thereof, is referred to here? -- and, "bonus", not required for correct answer; can you name the author?

 

[martinsh]

Jersey Railway ?

No idea of the author

 

[Calthrop]

The 3ft. 6in. gauge Jersey Railway, it indeed was. The sad event was in October 1936; by which date the railway was in trouble -- losing money, beset by road competition: winter services had been withdrawn a few years earlier. A large-scale fire broke out at the line's St. Aubin station, where much of the railway's coaching stock was stored: the station roof, and sixteen coaches, were destroyed. The railway company decided to call it a day; the line was abandoned and dismantled. (Its standard-gauge counterpart the Jersey Eastern Railway, St. Helier -- Gorey, had succumbed in similar wise, to general post-World War I conditions; and closed seven years previously.)

The quotation is from the epilogue in Bryan Morgan's The End of the Line. His wording seems a bit hyperbolic -- a rather unusual proximate cause of a railway's closing, but really not all that bizarre; IMO Morgan wrote beautifully, but wasn't immune to making the occasional slightly cheap crack.

@martinsh: next question is yours to set.

 

[martinsh]

Staying with narrow gauge

The Ashover Light Railway started up in the early 1920s with 6 war surplus 4-6-0 tanks. They did not receive numbers, but were named. However, two of them were given the same name ! Why was this ?

 

[Calthrop]

I've read about this, but am vague on some of the details. I knew it was six locos, but five names (called after the General Manager's children, I believe). Wasn't one loco acquired for the purpose of -- from the first -- being "cannibalised" for spare parts for the rest of the fleet; never actually ran on the line... Did this involve the name Georgie -- "Georgie [1]" , working loco; "Georgie [2]", the "designated cannibalisation victim"?

 

[martinsh]

You're close - but not close enough for me to give it to you. And the name wasn't Georgie either

 

[Calthrop]

Joan, Peggy, Hummy, or Guy, then? -- the other names IIRC -- my recall is indeed very incomplete !

 

[martinsh]

Difficult to think of any clue which doesn't give it away. Shall I just provide the answer ?

 

[Calthrop]

For me -- yes, please do !

 

[martinsh]

OK. The duplicated name was Guy. Guy No 1 was the engine used for construction of the line and by the time the line was completed Guy was worn out. Hence the name was reused on one of the other locomotives, and the original Guy was used for spares.

Ashover Light Railway - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[martinsh]

Oh. Open Floor as well

 

[Calthrop]

OK. The duplicated name was Guy. Guy No 1 was the engine used for construction of the line and by the time the line was completed Guy was worn out. Hence the name was reused on one of the other locomotives, and the original Guy was used for spares.

Ashover Light Railway - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Thanks. I'd have loved to know the Ashover "in its glory"; but that came to an end when I was aged two (and not in that part of the world).

 

[martinsh]

No-one else has come forward, so I'll give you another one to chew on ...

Whereabouts was the last commercially used rope-worked rail incline in Britain ? And when did it cease operation ?

NB preserved lines and funiculars don't count

 

[jp4712]

No-one else has come forward, so I'll give you another one to chew on ...

Whereabouts was the last commercially used rope-worked rail incline in Britain ? And when did it cease operation ?

NB preserved lines and funiculars don't count

Corkickle Brake, Cumbria? I think it finished in 1986 as I started a job in 1985 that frequently took me to Sellafield and in those pre-internet days I didn’t know about it until it had already closed.

 

[martinsh]

Corkickle Brake, Cumbria? I think it finished in 1986 as I started a job in 1985 that frequently took me to Sellafield and in those pre-internet days I didn’t know about it until it had already closed.

Yes the Corkickle Brake in Whitehaven - which closed on 31st October 1986. Your turn to start up the winding drum

 

[jp4712]

Into which two counties did the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway’s network extend beyond Lancashire and Yorkshire? We’re talking pre-1974 counties, no Merseyside or Humberside etc; and we’re counting Yorkshire as one, no ‘North Riding’ tricksy stuff.

 

[SteveM70]

Cheshire will be one I presume?

 

[D6130]

Derbyshire?

 

[Efini92]

Cheshire and Flintshire?

 

[Peterthegreat]

Lincolnshire and Cheshire.

 

[xotGD]

Westmoreland and Lincolnshire

 

[jp4712]

@Peterthegreat gets it - the easier one was Lincolnshire with the LYR’s share in the Isle of Axholme Railway, but the Cheshire reference is quite obscure - it was the mile or so on the approach to Stalybridge.

Over to you.

 

[Peterthegreat]

In 2006 a Eurostar set a world record for the longest distance travelled by a non-stop passenger train. Departing from London Waterloo what was the ultimate destination?

 

[D6130]

Marseille?

 

[Peterthegreat]

Marseille?

Not Marseille.