Bill Winter

---

These notes are based on my experience and some of the data that I collected whilst writing a background history scenario for my fictional garden railway.  The history of the Llyfni Vale Railway & Harbour Company is all my own work but the actual historical facts have been culled from numerous sources.  I did not retain the details of all the sources so am unable to credit them, if one of them was yours, thank you.

 

Why bother? 

 

If basing a railway on a prototype the history and nature of the line is likely to be documented somewhere and it would be inviting critical comment if, having claimed it to be based on a particular line, it suffered some obvious discrepancies from the original.  Research would be carried out and whilst some compromises on layout may be necessary the detail would be copied as accurately as possible, otherwise why bother basing the railway on something with which comparison could be made.

 

Having done the research, taken care with the selection of locos and stock, reproduced a station or two and modelled the landscape there is every likelihood that the line would be well on the way to presenting a realistic impression of the original at a reduced scale.   It would look realistic to the casual observer because it would be recognisable and compare favourably with the familiar, the detail may be more critically analysed by the expert but the overall impression should still work.

 

A fictional line where there are no guidelines or restraints runs the risk of adopting an ‘anything goes’ philosophy and that does not reflect reality.  Whilst historical precedents may on occasions prove to be sillier than anything we could imagine using them frequently as a justification for unorthodoxy in a model may be fine for a train set in the garden but unlikely to produce a convincing model of a railway.  Devising a background to the fictional railway helps to constrain some of the wilder flights of fantasy and guide the design and building process to the achievement of something that has an air of realism about it.  With a little care it will even convince the experts who, having no prototype to compare rivets with, will be able to see familiar scenes that they can believe in.

 

Where to start?

 

To some extent this will depend on your perspective on garden railways and whether you are starting from scratch and devising the history before work starts or trying to devise a history for a railway that already exists.  Presumably the idea of having a fictional railway is to offer the freedom to model the railway you want without having to slavishly follow a prototype and it is unlikely that you will want to allow the history to totally dictate how the railway turns out.

 

You may already have preferences for particular locomotives, types of stock or a part of the world, not to mention an existing garden railway that you want to incorporate into the history.   The trick is to manage to weave the wish list and the actual historic facts into a coherent and believable history for your railway so that the resulting railway is coherent and believable. 

 

If you already have some preferences, ambitions and skills that you particularly wish to express through your railway some of the questions posed below may already have answers, others may require some smart thinking to make the fiction fit around the facts.  Before making too many decisions some careful consideration to the effect that these choices are going to have on the railway is going to be required.  Whilst you may like the idea of mainline expresses with fifteen coach trains how much room do you have available?

 

When devising a scenario for a railway it is well worth considering the historical facts before creating any fiction. 

 

What type of railway is it?

 

Standard gauge main lines race across the countryside avoiding minor habitation and employing major civil engineering works to overcome any inconveniences in the landscape.  Narrow gauge rural lines on the other hand were built on a shoe string, often going out of their way to visit any possible source of income or to avoid negotiating a hill or dale.

 

A Welsh slate quarry line on 2ft gauge weaving along the edge of a steep hillside is going have a totally different appearance to a 3ft gauge Irish mixed traffic line running along the coast and a standard gauge railway, be it a single track branch line or a double track through route, will be different again.

 

The type of railway chosen will, to some extent, determine its location and the formation of the track bed and landscape. (Or visa versa, the chosen location dictating a particular class of railway, traffic to be catered for or the type of track formation.)  

 

Where is your railway situated?

 

The landscape and the building materials availably locally often place a scene in a specific part of the world.  The railway infrastructure and its immediate environment are dictated by its location and go a long way to identifying the railway. 

 

There are numerous of ways of fixing the locating of your railway.  You may like a particular style of buildings, type of landscape or class of railway that dictates its location in the country, or in another country.  Having identified the general location using your particular criteria an Ordnance Survey map of the area can afford pleasant entertainment for a Winters evening whilst acting as railway surveyor.

 

The map will show the routes of disused railways which you could reopen under preservation, or maybe an old standard gauge branch re-laid as a narrow gauge tourist line, a quarry tramway that developed into a steam hauled rural line, or an industrial site that needed a railway, plenty of options.

 

If you really want to get creative you could survey a new route, the map can be used to identify potential sources of traffic and the railway routed between them. Contour lines show the lie of the land, the closer together the steeper the grade.  A simple calculation of distance travelled by height gained gives the gradient.  If the grid squares on the map are 1000 metres and the distance between the contours 10 metres crossing one contour for each grid square travelled equates to 1 in 100.  Two contours crossed is equivalent to 1 in 50 and so on.  The ruling grade for the railway is the steepest section on the route a long 1 in 90 is better than a short 1 in 30.  Whether you replicate the grades on your garden version is up to you but there is no point in placing your railway in a location on a map unless it might have actually been able to operate in the chosen location.

 

The map will help provide station names that fit the locality, names with double L’s and F’s can only really be in Wales, Dale and Wold tend to be area specific and so on.  In the early days their lordships often had a say and stations were named after the big house, sometimes a villages some miles from the railway or even a local hostelry.  Endless hours of fun, or frustration!

 

When was the railway built, what period is it now operating in?

 

When it was built and whether public or private, goods only or passenger determined how it was constructed and regulated.  Up to about 1840 there were was little regulation.  Most lines were horse worked with unsprung stock, dumb buffers and open coaches or wagons with seats.  Track was of light construction using short sections of cast iron rail some with separate stone sleepers to each rail resulting in considerable gauge variation and double flanged wheels loose on the axles.  Where full width sleepers were used track was ballasted to rail height to provide a walkway for the horses.  Some lines were rerouted to accommodate the coming of the locomotive but many were not and still had horse drawn features, stables, watering points, etc. Lines might have been called railways, tramways, wagonways or anything else that the owner fancied.

 

Parliament welcomed railways as competition for roads and canals, but allowed piecemeal development.    Eventually the government was forced to do something to regulate the railways, however a line built on private land that did not cross any rights of way fell outside all legislation and could do as it pleased until quite recently.  Any new lines on public land and passenger carrying required an Act of parliament for their construction and were subject to inspection afterwards.  Initially regulation of standard and narrow gauge was the same requiring compliance with the same regulations and inspections with regard to signalling, gated level crossings, proper platforms etc.  The regulations imposed design constraints on track plans, facing points being particularly disliked, it would be necessary to have an approved rulebook for the railways operation and to file accounts.

 

In order to reduce the cost and to encourage the building of rural lines there were a number of attempts to bring in simpler regulation in exchange for speed and weight restrictions.  Few lines were built under these new Acts until The Light Railways Act came into force, this allowed for operation under the simplified regulations but significantly allowed for the compulsory purchase of land.  Some railways that had been built under the previous regulations downgraded and operated under the Light Railway regulations to cut costs.  The Act covered both standard and narrow gauges but most lines built under it were of narrow gauges.

 

A summary of the Acts follows, internet searches should reveal more information on the ones of interest and a full copy of some are available on the The Railways Archive  and also the UK Staute Law Database search ‘All Acts’ for title ‘Railways’ look at the bottom of page 3.  Wikipedia is also quite a useful resource.

 

1830 Railway Act required the record of all financial dealings and submission of returns.

 

1838 Railways (Conveyance of Mails) Act said that railways had to carry the Royal Mail.

 

1840 Railway Regulation Act.

The Board of Trade was given the power to inspect all lines before they opened. It was also given powers to supervise fares, rates and traffic and to investigate accidents if it so wished.  The Railways Department of the Board of Trade (the predecessor of Her Majesty's Railway Inspectorate) was created to fulfil this task.

Measures contained in the Act were-

No railway to be opened without notice  (Have you given notice?)

Returns to be made by railway companies

Appointment of Board of Trade inspectors

Railway byelaws to be approved by the Board

Prohibition of drunkenness by railway employees

Prohibition of trespass on railways

 

1842 Railway Act. This was mainly a safety act to ensure that railways ran safe services.

 

1842 Railway Clearing House was set up to co-ordinate through traffic over the lines of different companies. (Some oportunity for mixed liveries?)

 

1843 Budget allowed the export of machinery, railway rolling-stock, locomotives and expertise.

 

1844 Railway Act 

Measures contained in the Act were-

Government assumed the right to buy all railways constructed after 1841, after a period of 21 years, if it so wished. This clause was not implemented.

Government assumed the absolute right to take control of all railways in times of national emergency.

Government assumed the right to fix fares and freight charges.

Railway companies had to provide a minimum service: one train each day each way, travelling at not less than 12 miles per hour and stopping at every passenger station, (How many garden railways comply!) charging no more than 1d. per mile for third class passengers.

 

1845 Railway Act parliament imposed a maximum charge for freight.

 

1846 Gauges Act prohibited the extension of the 7' gauge, except on the Great Western Railway and said that a third line of 4' 8½' had to be laid where 7' track met 4' 8½" line.

 

1849 Railway Act ratified the Railway Clearing House.

 

1854 Railway and Canal Traffic Act made it statutory to provide facilities for through traffic.

 

1854 Cardwell's Act made the railways public carriers and outlawed 'preferences' which levied different rates on different customers for particular goods.

 

1864 First attempt a cheaper railway construction, did not allow for compulsory purchase

 

1870 Tramways Act was intended to promote urban lines though some rural lines were built under it.

 

1889 Regulation of railways Act (A biggy for models after this date)

Measures contained in the Act were-

Mandatory introduction of fixed block signalling;

Mandatory introduction of interlocking of points and signals;

Mandatory introduction of continuous brakes;

Creation of the means to finance such measures, by issuing debenture stock;

Mandatory submission to the Board of staff overtime levels;

Introduction of penalty charges for passengers without tickets;

Requirement to print fare on every ticket issued.

 

The Light Railways Act 1896  (Useful for narrow gauge models)

The creation of the act was triggered by a combination of problems with the complexity of creating low cost railways that were needed at the time for rural areas, and the successful use of tramway rules to create the Wisbech and Upwell Tramway in 1882 which was in fact a light railway in all but name.

 

The act limited weights to a maximum of 12 tons on each axle and speeds to a maximum of 25 miles per hour (mph), and 8 mph on bends. It did not exclude standard-gauge track, but narrow gauge tracks were used for many railways built under its provisions.

 

(Until new rules were introduced railways in preservation  in the UK were operated under Light Railway Orders)

.

1921 Grouping of Railways Act  (Get the paint brush out)

Intended to stem the losses being made by many of the country's 120 railway companies, move the railways away from internal competition, and to retain some of the benefits which the country had derived from a government-controlled railway during and after the Great war of 1914-1918. 

The Act created the Big Four.

London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS)

Great Western Railway (GWR)

London and North Eastern Railway (LNER)

Southern Railway (SR)

 

1948 Nationalisation of railways (Another repaint)

British Railways (BR), later British Rail, was the operator of most of the British railway system from the nationalisation of the 'Big Four' British railway companies in 1948 until privatisation in stages from 1994 to 1997.   The period of nationalisation saw sweeping changes in the railway network, steam was eliminated in favour of diesel and electric power, passengers replaced freight, and one third of the network was axed under Beeching.

 

The choice of period will have a significant effect on the apearance of your railway.

After the 1889 Act the requirements of lock, block and brake would have changed the apearance of stock with continious braking, track layout and traffic control to comply with the Act. 

 

After 1896 lines built or operated under the Light Railways Act would have been able to cut cost by acepting reduced loads and speed for less regulation.

 

The big four liveries would not have seen before 1921 and were replaced by the BR ones from 1948.  The majority of public narrow gauge lines that survived the periods would also have had changes of ownership and livery.  (Though I doubt that the 3’ 6” horse tramwy from Talysarn would have seen so much as a lick of LNWR or BR paint!)

 

The presevation era allows for a greater variety of liveries and stock on the one railway, W&LLR uses some continental stock, but the old legislation and a raft of newer including Health and Safety regulations would need to be complied with. 

 

The private lines were less affected surving into the early 1960’s largely unaltered offering more scope if passenger services are not a requirement. 

 

The Talyllyn managed to ingnore the 1889  Act by being on the outskirts of civilisation as far as the inspectorate were concerned and Nationalisation by stopping making returns after 1911 and oficialy ceasing to exist until preservation, it seems to have been a one off but offers a precedent for the use of a little imagination.

 

Having sorted out the factual aspects of the location, type, period and the constraints that they place on the railway we can start to construct the fiction around these facts.

 

Why was your railway built, what was it meant to do, how did it develop?

 

Railways were built to serve a purpose, make money for the speculator who proposed them, to move specific materials or serve existing industry; some started out as passenger carrying others expanded into it others were built just to cut off a large tract of the country to stop other companies getting a foothold. 

 

What type of stock would the railway have required?

 

The locomotives and rolling stock whilst often standard products from familiar manufacturers where chosen to suit the terrain, type of services offered and the funds available.  Under Grouping and Nationalisation standard gauge stock and locomotives became increasingly standardised and their narrow gauge counterparts absorb into the corporate image.   Narrow gauge lines seldom had much in the way of spare capital so stock was usually to the minimum specification for the job, often inadequate and seldom with any frills, at least not after some possibly rash initial investment.

 

What next?

 

Anything from an idea retained in the head to a fully documented history.

The purpose of the scenario is, first and foremost, as tool to guide the construction and appearance of the railway, to try and avoid features that are completely out of character and destroy the illusion whilst giving some room for imagination and expression.  The main thing is to have considered the issues and to have a plan, beyond that lies the potentially time consuming addiction of ‘unhistory’ writing.

 

If you wish to document the history then a simple list of dates that things happened, taking into account what other railways were doing at the time, would be probably be a useful place to start. My previous effort at a history was for the Talysarn and Pontllyfni Light Railway which had steam locomotives before the Festiniog and was a Light Railway some twenty years before the Light Railways Act!   In order to avoid similar errors I started the new railway with a spreadsheet into which I recorded information on actual railways from the same area, some national events that would have affected traffic and manpower alongside a column for my own railway.

 

A simple list of events of this nature may well be sufficient for practical purposes but over the closed season when it is too cold and wet to be out in the garden or workshop it can be interesting to take things a little further.  It might take the form of a story board with characters and events recorded as a narrative or a more formal set of railway documents that might include stock lists, advertising material, rule books, fare tables, track plans, signalling diagrams etc.  Personally I find the latter more useful in the planning and modelling though I have a pamphlet for visitors of the former type.

I am working on notes about the preparation and use of the LVR documents and will link them as they are added.

 

The research is certainly useful in achieving a sense of realism and can become addictive, but the main thing for me is it that it adds to the interest and enjoyment I get from having a garden railway, it’s FUN.

 

 

Bill Winter  Mar 09