St Michael's Mount Tramway | |
---|---|
Operation | |
Locale | St Michael's Mount, Cornwall, England |
Open | about 1900 |
Status | Open (private) [1] |
Infrastructure | |
Propulsion system(s) | Wire rope, powered by electric motor |
Statistics | |
Track length (single) | 210 yards (190 m) |
Route length | 210 yards (190 m) |
The St Michael's Mount Tramway runs from near the harbour up to the castle which dominates the tidal island of St Michael's Mount, in Cornwall, England. The tramway is sometimes referred to as the Dreckly Express. [2] [3]
The tramway was developed around 1900 by the castle's owner – Lord St Levan – to haul supplies ranging from building materials to groceries up to the castle and dustbins downhill. A notable traffic was Lord St Levan's regalia for the Coronation in 1953. It has never operated a passenger service, though one was contemplated in the late 1930s. [4]
The single track tramway originally ran from the quayside, but some years ago it was cut back to start from a short, level, enclosed loading area. At the castle end of this loading area the line plunges into a tunnel and begins its ascent which is entirely in tunnel. Most of the tunnel was built using the cut and cover method, with just the uppermost few yards being bored through granite. The tunnel is generally about 5 feet (1.5 m) wide and 7 feet (2.1 m) high, except for the section through granite which is about 6 feet (1.8 m) high.
The line is level only at the loading areas at its ends. In between it runs on slopes ranging from 1 in 14 (7.14 %) near the foot to 1 in 1.9 (52.6%) for the last 40 yards (37 m), giving a total rise of 173 feet (53 m), emerging near the castle's kitchens.
The line's varying slopes and the curve near its foot makes the wire haulage rope more prone to thrashing [5] than most rope-worked lines, where gravity usually holds the rope in rollers. It receives its greatest wear nearest the tram, so by buying a rope deliberately longer than necessary it is possible to cut the worn end off three times before needing to replace the whole rope. Until the mid-1920s a gas engine provided the motive power. A Ruston petrol engine was then installed to provide electricity to the castle, enabling rechargeable batteries to be installed to power the tramway. In 1951 the island was connected to the National Grid, since when the rope has been powered by a 12 horsepower (8.9 kW ) AC motor. In 2018 the cable was reported to be wound by a Crompton Parkinson electric motor. [6]
Several trams have been used over the years. That used in 1964 was built locally. It had a metal frame with a wooden floor lined with galvanised sheeting and wooden side planking, some of which could be lifted out by hand to make loading and unloading easier. The wheels were loose on their axles, which themselves were able to rotate. At that time four or five runs were made in a typical day, with considerable increases if building work was taking place when, for example, granite blocks and 20-foot (6.1 m) scaffolding poles have been carried. The current tram has the general appearance of a trunk on wheels. [7]
Most details of this short line are uncontentious, but the line's gauge, which has not changed since it was built, is variously reported on line and in the literature as:
In 2018, the tramway was reported as being "still in regular use, perhaps not every day". [6] However, the National Trust, which acts as the island's custodian, is said to "prohibit visitors from seeing it", though it is mentioned in the Trust's publicity. [12] The only part readily accessible to the public is the disused last few feet, ending at the harbourside wall, [13] in which a pair of wooden buffer stops is embedded. [14]
A narrow-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge narrower than 1,435 mmstandard gauge. Most narrow-gauge railways are between 600 mm and 1,067 mm.
St Michael's Mount is a tidal island in Mount's Bay near Penzance, Cornwall, England. The island is a civil parish and is linked to the town of Marazion by a causeway of granite setts, passable between mid-tide and low water. It is managed by the National Trust, and the castle and chapel have been the home of the St Aubyn family since around 1650.
The Glyn Valley Tramway was a narrow-gauge railway that ran through the Ceiriog Valley in north-east Wales, connecting Chirk with Glyn Ceiriog in Denbighshire. The gauge of the line was 2 feet 4+1⁄4 inches (718 mm) while it was horse-drawn, which was unofficially increased to 2 ft 4+1⁄2 in when steam locomotives were introduced. The total length of the line was 8+1⁄4 miles (13.3 km), 6+1⁄2 miles (10.5 km) of which were worked by passenger trains, the remainder serving a large granite quarry and several minor slate quarries.
Par is a village and fishing port with a harbour on the south coast of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The village is situated in the civil parish of Tywardreath and Par, although West Par and the docks lie in the parish of St Blaise.
Gauntlet track or interlaced track, also gantlet track (AE) is an arrangement in which railway tracks run parallel on a single track bed and are interlaced in such a way that only one pair of rails can be used at any time. Since this requires only slightly more width than a single track, all rails can be carried on the same crossties/sleepers. Trains run on the pair of rails appropriate to their direction, track gauge or loading gauge.
The Giant's Causeway Tramway, operated by the Giant's Causeway, Portrush and Bush Valley Railway & Tramway Company Ltd, was a pioneering 3 ft 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". The Giant's Causeway and Bushmills Railway today operates diesel and steam tourist trains over part of the Tramway's former course.
There were more than a thousand British narrow-gauge railways ranging from large, historically significant common carriers to small, short-lived industrial railways. Many notable events in British railway history happened on narrow-gauge railways including the first use of steam locomotives, the first public railway and the first preserved railway.
The Howth Tram on the Hill of Howth Tramway was a tram which served Howth Head, near Dublin, Ireland. The termini were at Sutton railway station, by the entrance to the peninsula, and Howth railway station by the village and harbour of Howth.
The Nantlle Railway was a Welsh narrow gauge railway. It was built to carry slate from several slate quarries across the Nantlle Valley to the harbour at Caernarfon for export by sea. The line provided a passenger service between Caernarfon and Talysarn from 1856 to 1865. It was the first public railway to be operated in North Wales.
The Gorseddau Tramway was a 3 ft narrow gauge railway built in Wales in 1856 to link the slate quarries around Gorseddau with the wharves at Porthmadog. It was an early forerunner of the Gorseddau Junction and Portmadoc Railway and subsequently the Welsh Highland Railway.
The Saundersfoot Railway was a Welsh industrial narrow-gauge railway in Pembrokeshire, Wales, built between 1830 and 1834, to connect Saundersfoot harbour to the local coal mines. It opened on 1 March 1834 and within a few years it comprised a small network of over 4 miles (6.4 km) along the coast from Saundersfoot to Wisemans Bridge and on to the collieries at Stepaside and Kilgetty, and later, running inland to Thomas Chapel near Begelly.
The 4 ft 6 in track gauge, also called the Scotch gauge, was adopted by early 19th century railways mainly in the Lanarkshire area of Scotland. It differed from the gauge of 4 ft 8 in that was used on some early lines in England. Early railways chose their own gauge, but later in the century interchange of equipment was facilitated by establishing a uniform rail gauge across railways: the 'standard gauge' of 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in. In the early 1840s standard gauge lines began to be constructed in Scotland, and all the Scotch gauge lines were eventually converted to standard gauge. The building of new Scotch gauge railways was outlawed in Great Britain in 1846 by the Regulating the Gauge of Railways Act 1846. From 1903, tram lines of Tokyo adopted this gauge.
The Treffry Viaduct is a historic dual-purpose railway viaduct and aqueduct located close to the village of Luxulyan, Cornwall in the United Kingdom. The viaduct crosses the Luxulyan Valley and is part of the Treffry Tramways. It forms an integral part of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape, a World Heritage Site. It is scheduled under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 and due to its poor condition is on Historic England's, Heritage at Risk Register.
The Cornwall Minerals Railway owned and operated a network of 45 miles (72 km) of standard gauge railway lines in central Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It started by taking over an obsolescent horse-operated tramway in 1862, and it improved and extended it, connecting Newquay and Par Harbours, and Fowey. Having expended considerable capital, it was hurt by a collapse in mineral extraction due to a slump in prices. Despite its title, it operated a passenger service between Newquay and Fowey.
The Treffry Tramways were a group of mineral tramways in Cornwall in the United Kingdom, constructed by Joseph Treffry (1782–1850), a local land owner and entrepreneur. They were constructed to give transport facilities to several mines and pits producing non-ferrous metal, granite and china clay in the area between the Luxulyan Valley and Newquay, and were horse-operated, with the use of water and steam power on inclines, and at first operated in conjunction with the Par Canal and Par Docks, also constructed by Treffry. One of the routes crossed the Luxulyan Valley on a large viaduct, the largest in Cornwall when it was built.
The Hercules Haulage, also known as the Mount Read Haulage, the Hercules Tram and the Williamsford Haulage Line, was a self-acting 2 ft narrow gauge tramway on the side of Mount Read in Western Tasmania, that connected the Hercules Mine with Williamsford and then to the North East Dundas Tramway.
The Portreath Tramroad, or alternatively the Portreath Tramway, was opened in 1815, providing a wagonway route from mines near Scorrier in Cornwall, England, to a port at Portreath. From there, it could be transported to market by coastal shipping. It was later extended to serve the Poldice mine near St Day and became known as the Poldice Tramroad, or Poldice Tramway.
Carnarvon Castle railway station was opened in 1856 by the narrow gauge Nantlle Railway near the foot of what is today the Allt Y Castell which slopes down to Caernarfon's harbour area. It was the line's northern terminus and was the closest of Caernarfon's ultimately five stations to the historic town centre.
The Barbados Tramway Company operated a network of horse-drawn narrow gauge trams in Bridgetown, capital of Barbados, with an unknown gauge of approximately 1,067 mm.
Grinkle Mine, was an ironstone mine working the main Cleveland Seam near to Roxby in North Yorkshire, England. Initially, the ironstone was mined specifically for the furnaces at the Palmer Shipbuilders in Jarrow on the River Tyne, but later, the mine became independent of Palmers. To enable the output from the mine to be exported, a 3-mile (4.8 km) narrow-gauge tramway was constructed that ran across three viaducts and through two tunnels to the harbour of Port Mulgrave, where ships would take the ore directly to Tyneside.