Why is it called a "light railway" ?
I have only ever heard "light railway" being used to refer to preserved lines or tram lines (such as the Metrolink).
Known as the Grimsby District Light Railway, this was the first line built by the Great Central under the provisions of the 1896 Light Railway Act. Primarily intended to assist thinly populated areas gain access to the railway system by relaxing certain legal requirements but with restrictions placed on operations in order to reduce construction and running costs, they sometimes were built for quite different purposes carrying traffics other than those associated with the more typical rural line that the light railway legislation was designed to promote.
Things like lineside fences, level crossing gates and signalling could be dispensed with but a maximum speed of just 25 MPH was permitted with other restrictions like 10 MPH through facing points as necessary. Some had other restrictions unique to one particular line eg. the Great North of Scotland's line between Fraserburgh and St. Combs whose locomotives had to be provided with cowcatchers, a requirement which was not relaxed until the advent of DMUs.
Whilst the preserved lines operate under light railway orders and are bound by these strict rules, looking at some of them in a now quite heavily developed state they do seem, in reality, to be anything but.
