Has anyone here made a facsimile of early British railway track in any scale?
My understanding is that some of the earliest Stephenson era track was laid upon
granite blocks. I would be most curious and appreciative of anyone’s handy work
With first gen British steam.
First generation railway track...
First generation railway track...
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Re: First generation railway track...
Nearest I can think is the late Mike Sharman, he was a great one for very early mixed gauge layouts. There are some videos and pictures on line of his layouts, dont think he did any as early as stone blocks.Chops wrote:Has anyone here made a facsimile of early British railway track in any scale?
My understanding is that some of the earliest Stephenson era track was laid upon
granite blocks. I would be most curious and appreciative of anyone’s handy work
With first gen British steam.
Jim
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My layout - Gateside and Northbridge
My layout - Gateside and Northbridge
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Re: First generation railway track...
Minor point but stone "sleepers" could be seen in use well into the last century. I believe there are pictures extant from BR days with some in use!
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Re: First generation railway track...
A very good and quite extensive 4mm (P4, 18.83mm gauge) working layout representing part of the Stockton and Darlington as it was when opened in 1825, was built for the 150th anniversary in 1975 and exhibited. There were illustrated articles in at least two magazines, one of which was Railway Modeller. I will see if I can dig up an edition date on Monday.
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Re: First generation railway track...
Stone block rail supports were preferred to sleepers where horses supplied the traction, but the horses seemed to adapt to sleepers as long as they were allowed to sink into the ground.
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My Layout, My Workbench Blog and My Opinions
My Layout, My Workbench Blog and My Opinions
Re: First generation railway track...
Thank you for that Bigmet, I'd like to see that. Generally speaking, some details can get overlooked
and lost to history. For example, what sort of a hose was used to connect The Rocket's tender to the
boiler, and what manner of one way valve was used to conduct the flow of water from a tender a flask
at atmospheric pressure to a high pressure boiler, 50 lbs/psi?
In 1827 one could not walk into a hardware store and purchase a suitable length of hose. Almost everything,
save the gauges, had to be built from scratch. I searched and researched digital and hard copy, and came up
with very little other than a leather hose had been patented by some German manufacturer shortly before
that time. If one thinks on it, the technology of a hose is a bit complicated when one is trying to fashion a
flexible, water tight tube that can contain pressure.
I need to do another internet search, but there isn't a great lot said about first gen railway track, beyond that
Stephenson seems to have invented a successful form of switches based upon his work as a collier engineer, that
iron was too brittle, and that American strap rail had a nasty habit of becoming snake heads and impaling unsuspecting
passengers.
I recollect the Baltimore and Ohio, a very early railway in the USA used granite blocks upon which some sort of rail was
secured. That must have been and an enormous amount of brute labor fashioning these things mile upon mile. A great
deal of untreated logs were used as sleepers, but they didn't last long and settled badly, creating a need for a pilot
truck to prevent the entire affair from crashing off the rails.
This, attributed to an early Scottish railway:
From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository
Here's a B&O one, I think:
and lost to history. For example, what sort of a hose was used to connect The Rocket's tender to the
boiler, and what manner of one way valve was used to conduct the flow of water from a tender a flask
at atmospheric pressure to a high pressure boiler, 50 lbs/psi?
In 1827 one could not walk into a hardware store and purchase a suitable length of hose. Almost everything,
save the gauges, had to be built from scratch. I searched and researched digital and hard copy, and came up
with very little other than a leather hose had been patented by some German manufacturer shortly before
that time. If one thinks on it, the technology of a hose is a bit complicated when one is trying to fashion a
flexible, water tight tube that can contain pressure.
I need to do another internet search, but there isn't a great lot said about first gen railway track, beyond that
Stephenson seems to have invented a successful form of switches based upon his work as a collier engineer, that
iron was too brittle, and that American strap rail had a nasty habit of becoming snake heads and impaling unsuspecting
passengers.
I recollect the Baltimore and Ohio, a very early railway in the USA used granite blocks upon which some sort of rail was
secured. That must have been and an enormous amount of brute labor fashioning these things mile upon mile. A great
deal of untreated logs were used as sleepers, but they didn't last long and settled badly, creating a need for a pilot
truck to prevent the entire affair from crashing off the rails.
This, attributed to an early Scottish railway:
From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository
Here's a B&O one, I think:
Nessie rocks!