Roger Farnworth Railways

[rogerfarnworth]

RE: Stockport's Tramways
Stockport Corporation Tramways – Modern Tramway Vol. 12 No. 138, June 1949 – Part 1

P.W. Gentry wrote about Stockport’s trams in the July 1949 issue of Modern Tramway.

He says: “Besides possessing several interesting features of its own, the Stockport system today commands added attention as the last last surviving member of that once network of standard gauge undertakings encircling Manchester. It is an unusually pleasing system by virtue of its compact and simple arrangement, its focal point being Mersey Square.”

This article in Modern Tramway caught my attention because for about 9 years I worked in Stockport as a highway engineer.

We know that tramways arrived in Stockport in the 1880’s from the Manchester direction when “the Manchester Tramways and Carriage Co, Ltd., [opened] a horse-car service into Mersey Square via Levenshulme.” l

In 1889, the Stockport and Hazel Grove Carriage and Tramway Co. Ltd. was formed and “instituted horse car services southwards to Hazel Grove and Edgeley at Easter 1890.”

http://rogerfarnworth.com/2025/01/15/sto...949-part-1

[rogerfarnworth]

Re: Khartoum Trams
Khartoum, Sudan Again – The Modern Tramway, Vol. 13 No. 156 – December 1950.

The Modern Tramway reported in December 1950 on the purchase by the Sudan Light & Power Company of the new 4-motor bogie tramcars. The bogies and equipment were being “supplied by the English Electric Company and the underframes and bodies by Charles Roberts and Company Ltd., under sub-contract to the English Electric Company. All motor tramcars and trailers [were to] be fitted with air brakes. As will be seen from the drawing reproduced, the body design [was] a pleasing example of modern British practice. The trailer cars [were] of similar outline.” [1: p270]

http://rogerfarnworth.com/2025/01/18/sud...ember-1950

[rogerfarnworth]

Re: The Giants Causeway and Portrush Tramway
In the Summer of 2024, my wife and I visited Giants’ Causeway as part of a few days meandering along the North coast of Ireland. When reading a series of older copies of the Modern Tramway, I came across an article written in 1950. … The Modern Tramway of September 1950 featured an article by D. G. Evans about one of the very early electric tramways – The Giants’ Causeway and Portrush Tramway. His article is quoted in full in this article.

Wikipedia tells us that The Giants’ Causeway, Portrush, & Bush Valley Railway & Tramway was a “pioneering 3 ft (914 mm) narrow gauge electric railway operating between Portrush and the Giant’s Causeway on the coast of County Antrim, Northern Ireland. The line, 9 1⁄4 miles (14.9 km) long, was hailed at its opening as ‘the first long electric tramway in the world’. [2] The Giant’s Causeway and Bushmills Railway today operates diesel and steam tourist trains over part of the Tramway’s former course.” [3]

http://rogerfarnworth.com/2025/01/19/the...-13-no-153

[rogerfarnworth]

RE: Roger Farnworth Railways
The Micklehurst Loop – an update at the beginning of 2025

I am indebted to ‘David’ for an update on the Plevin owned railway land in Mossley. …

It is a few years since I wrote a series of articles about the Micklehurst Loop which can be found on this thread. Circumstances have since changed at what was the Plevin site. Plevin’s relocated in 2024 to another site and their yard has been gradually deteriorating since then.

http://rogerfarnworth.com/2025/01/29/the...g-of-2025/

Earlier articles about the line can be found on these links:

http://rogerfarnworth.com/2021/01/31/the...op-part-1/

http://rogerfarnworth.com/2021/02/05/the...p-part-1a/

http://rogerfarnworth.com/2021/02/15/the...p-part-1b/

http://rogerfarnworth.com/2021/02/18/the...r-station/

http://rogerfarnworth.com/2021/03/07/the...oods-yard/

http://rogerfarnworth.com/2021/02/21/the...op-part-2/

http://rogerfarnworth.com/2021/02/22/the...op-part-3/

http://rogerfarnworth.com/2021/03/09/the...p-part-3a/

http://rogerfarnworth.com/2021/04/16/the...op-part-4/

[rogerfarnworth]

RE: A Short-lived Horse-powered 'Railway' in Hungary
The first Hungarian ‘railway line’ was completed nearly 20 years before the first steam-powered railway in Hungary (which was opened in 1846) on 15th August 1827, and ran from Pest to Kőbánya.

It was one of the early horse-drawn ‘railways’ but was definitely atypical in form!!

That railway “ran on a wooden structure running at an average height of one and a half to two metres above the ground, where the wooden beams were held by densely placed wooden posts. The wheels ran on very closely spaced rails on top of the beams, and the carriages hung down on either side of the entire structure, therefore floating, i.e. the design was very similar to a monorail.”

http://rogerfarnworth.com/2025/02/07/a-f...n-hungary/

[rogerfarnworth]

RE: Stockport's Tramways again. ...
Stockport Corporation Tramways – Part 2 (Modern Tramway Vol. 12 No. 138, June 1949)

This is a second article looking at Stockport Corporations Tramways.

Mersey Square was the main hub of Stockport’s tramway network and appeared as a schematic plan in Gentry’s article in The Modern Tramway. …

http://rogerfarnworth.com/2025/02/14/sto...june-1949/

[rogerfarnworth]

RE: Early Monorail Proposals in Russia
I came across this when looking into early railways. ...

Ivan Kirillovich Elmanov (Russian: Иван Кириллович Эльманов) was a Russian inventor. During 1820, in Myachkovo, near Moscow, he built a type of monorail described as a road on pillars. [3] The single rail was made of timber baulks resting above the pillars. The wheels were set on this wooden rail, while the horse-drawn carriage had a sled on its top. [3] This construction is considered to be the first known monorail in the world. [5][6] The horse-drawn carriages travelled on an elevated track. One project envisaged using them to transport salt on Crimea. [9]

Russia was a pioneer in the design and construction of monorails, from early horse-drawn models to later electrical and magnetic levitation systems. [2] Sadly, Elmanov could not find investors to fund for his project and stopped working on the monorail. In 1821, Henry Palmer patented his own (similar) monorail design in the UK. [2][3]

http://rogerfarnworth.com/2025/02/19/ear...in-russia/

[rogerfarnworth]

Re: Henry Robinson Palmer and Early British Monorails
Henry Robinson Palmer (1793-1844) was a British engineer who designed the first monorail system and also invented corrugated iron!

Born in 1793 in Hackney, he was the son of the Revd Samuel Palmer, a nonconformist minister, and his wife, Elizabeth, née Walker. [1] He was baptised in Tooting [2] and was educated at the academy run by his father and between 1811 and 1816 was an apprentice at 1811-16 Apprenticed to Bryan Donkin and Co.

When he finished his apprenticeship, Palmer was taken on by Thomas Telford, working for him for 10 years and involved with a variety of road/canal surveys and associated designs. In 1818, Palmer was one of three young engineers key to the founding of the Institution of Civil Engineers and on 23rd May 1820, he formally became a member of the Institution. [3]

http://rogerfarnworth.com/2025/02/19/hug...monorails/

[rogerfarnworth]

Re: The Llanfyllin Branch and Oswestry to Llanymynech
The Llanfyllin Branch and Oswestry to Llanymynech – Part 1 …

The Llanfyllin Branch was featured in an article by Stanley Jenkins in the October 2003 issue of Steam Days magazine. [3]

The immediately adjacent Tanat Valley Light Railway is covered articles elsewhere. They can be found on the links included in the linked article.

The two lines ran into the hills to the Southwest of Oswestry. The local Cambrian network is shown diagrammatically in the linked article. ....

http://rogerfarnworth.com/2025/02/21/the...ch-part-1/

[rogerfarnworth]

Re: The Mother of All Inventions?
When and why were railways created? What were the circumstances which brought about their existence?

History does not make it easy to take out one example from a steady continuum of change. ... There have been tracks or plateways since Roman times. You might say that these could be brought within the term railway and therefore the Romans invented the railway.

Except there were railways of a sort, at least as far back at 600 BCE, possibly going back even further, maybe as far back as 1000 BCE. The clearest example being the Diolkos Trackway, a paved trackway near Corinth in Ancient Greece which enabled boats to be moved overland across the Isthmus of Corinth.

For many people, however, the railways began with the Stockton and Darlington (S&D), though I’m sure people appreciate that history is not always as simple as it may seem.

The linked article is based on a short three page article by David Wilson which he wrote in the early 1990s, entitled, 'Mother of Inventions'. It explores some of the significance of the development of the railways and why they seem to hold a special place in our national consciousness.

http://rogerfarnworth.com/2025/03/03/the...inventions

There will always, and inevitably, be more to say about the development of railways than can be covered in a short article. Some discussion of how those development occurred would be worthwhile in the context of the 200th anniversary of the opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway later in 2025. I have been asked to prepare a talk about Stockton & Darlington railway for a special interest group in East Shropshire and considering its importance will preoccupy me in coming months. I hope this first article will be of interest to some readers.