AnthonyRail
Established Member
- Joined
- 11 Jan 2015
- Messages
- 1,208
Is that the bus depot op MorrisonIt did indeed have a railway.
The rather fascinating Bideford and Westward Ho! Railway.
Opened bit by bit between 1901 and 1908, it was shut down by 1917 and stripped for the war effort. Possibly the shortest lived 'proper' railway in the country?
There are traces of it left (I've walked bits of it).
The carriage shed at Bideford is still in existence along with various other things.
Not bad considering it closed over a hundred years ago.
The railway had no connection to any other system. Temporary track had to be laid through the streets to remove a locomotive!
well thats another old story ripped up then...This is a picture of a loco on rails traveling across the bridge in Bideford.
All the above, extremely interesting. The two books which I have on the BWH!&AR -- by Stanley C. Jenkins (1993) and Rod Garner (2008) -- agree in opining that Kingsley stayed in Britain: working for the MOD at Avonmouth and subsequently for the National Smelting Co. Ltd., also at Avonmouth, until withdrawn and scrapped in 1937; whereas the fate of the other two locos after spring / summer 1917, is unknown. The two authors see indications -- "alleged", rather than set down in black and white -- that Grenville and Torridge were embarked somewhere in the south-west of Great Britain, on a ship heading for "France for the Western Front"; which ship was sunk by a German torpedo somewhere en route (various mentions of the Bristol Channel; off the North Devon / North Cornwall coast [the most-cited location]; and the English Channel). A degree of haziness about all this: including something of an "urban legend / meme" flavour -- the same story is told re the track and equipment of a couple of other British minor lines, a long distance from each other and from North Devon, which were requisitioned and dismantled in the same way as the BWH!&A, and at roughly the same time; and (as per @2138Stafford, below), Jenkins notes that according to Lloyds' List, a cargo ship called Gotterdammerung did not exist in 1917.According to the IRS 'Industrial Locomotives of Dyfed & Powys' book 713 'Grenville' and 715 'Torridge' were requisitioned for use at the Ministry of Munitions, Pembrey, Carmarthenshire in August 1917. Hunslet supplied spares under an order dated 8/8/1919 for 713.
Hunslet also supplied spares under an order dated 9/8/1918 for 714 'Kingsley' at Ministry of Munitions, Avonmouth.
In addition 713 'Grenville' was seen at Oxford GWR on 23/5/1920 en route to another unknown location.
Information on other forums state that it has not been possible to trace a captured German cargo ship named Gotterdammerung which it is alleged was torpedoed carrying 2 of the BWH&A locomotives.
This old thread discredits the tale of the Gotterdammerung
https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/158935-railway-locomotives-on-torpedoed-ship-wreck/
It seems the ship never existed, and there are post war records of both locos
I second thatWhat an excellent picture!
The Royal Flying Corps was fairly tactically minded, notwithstanding the Independent Air Force and its' big Handley Page Type Os. The Royal Naval Air Service had rather grander ambitions - they were attacking the German mainland from 1914.I don't think the fledgling air force bombed Germany itself, BICBW.
Moral minefield alert!Whatever - they were still the enemy and cowards of the very highest order to attack non combatants in such a manner.
In my first post I provided a few pictures of the station at Westward Ho!. The second post followed the line from Bideford to Westward Ho! This post covers the remainder of the line from Westward Ho! to Appledore.