London Rail

Category: Narrow Gauge

  • The Surrey Iron Railway

    Plateways, characterized by their flat-topped rails or “plates” often laid on stone blocks, were designed to be pulled by horses. These early railways were primarily for private transport of goods – usually for canals, mines or factories. The Surrey Iron Railway was in essence a public railway, being accessible to any individual or company willing…

  • From revisionist to factual

    Remember the post A Revisionist Surrey Iron Railway? This post goes further that the detail featured in the previous one – and that because its not a revision in any way or form. In fact its a prequel of sorts to the Surrey and Croydon to Merstham iron railways. And that means its both factual…

  • A revisionist Surrey Iron Railway?

    2026 is the 180th anniversary of the closure of one of the world’s earliest public railways. It wasn’t a passenger carrying railway however. The Surrey Iron Railway was officially closed on 31st August 1846. Its traffic had been considerably low for at least two decades prior to that date and in the final years there…

  • Blatten and the Swiss railway

    The picturesque upper Lötschental is where the recent calamity involving the village of Blatten occurred. It is a disaster of gigantic proportions and the huge avalanche and mud slide from the Birch glacier has buried the village to a depths of between 50 and 200 metres. That’s pretty deep if one thinks about it. Fifty…

  • A Tower Subway memo

    A London Inheritance published a post detailing the Tower Subway and also implied the southern end of the subway happened to be a mystery because it could not be ascertained whether the modern structure behind the Unicorn Theatre in Vine Lane was indeed its southern end. Its not its original southern end however the tunnel…

  • The Opicina tram – an update

    The Opicina tram in Northern Italy, the world’s only tramway of its kind, has been shut nearly 5 years. Following an accident on Via Commerciale between Trieste and Opicina in August 2016, it was forced to close. The line was meant to reopen in March 2020 but then came the COVID pandemic. The last time…

  • Upgrading the Transports Publics Fribourg #2

    This second part covers the new Bulle station and the famous Bulle to Broc line in part. This line is famous because it connected directly to the celebrated Nestle chocolate factory in Broc. Also famous for considerable standard gauge freight traffic carried via the narrow gauge as well as the celebrated ‘Chocolate Express.’ Not now…

  • Upgrading the Transports Publics Fribourg

    In the canton of Fribourg, the TPF (previously known as the GFM) has a long metre gauge route (as well as two standard gauge lines) that make up the authority’s diverse transportation offerings, which include trolleybuses. Enhancements have been made to almost all of the company’s lines, including the standard gauge, and some of these…

  • The Southwold Railway #3

    Forty years of dereliction and decay: After closure the line remained derelict for the next twenty years or so. There were moves to reopen it, none of which came to fruition. Most of the route’s track remained until the early forties. The army blew up part of the Blyth bridge thus the line was severed…

  • The Southwold Railway #2

    The railway’s route from Southwold to Halesworth: From the station itself the line headed across Southwold common and soon entered the largest cutting on the entire route. This present day view on Google Street shows the start of the cutting itself. Its been a public footpath for the last seventy years or so. This footpath was what…

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