Unusual Locomotives and Railcars

All around our world different engineers designed vehicles which seemingly suited the circumstances with which they were dealing.

Across the British railway network, and particularly on some of the light railways which sprang to life after the Light Railways Act 1896, there were a number of unusual locomotives and railcars.

This article focusses on two locomotives - Gazelle and Old Chainey.

http://rogerfarnworth.com/2020/01/02/unusual-small-locomotives-and-railcars-part-1

 

Three further unusual locomotives/railcars. ...

The first was the first Michelin Pneumatic-Tyred Railcar (Type No.9) in the UK. The second are locomtives designed to serve the narrow gauge lines in The Guinness Factory i Dublin and a clever conversion vehicle which allowed the same locos to proviide traction on the Irish Standard Gauge as well. The third are railcars that were used by Colonel Stephens on a number of his Light Railways. ....

http://rogerfarnworth.com/2020/01/03/unusual-locomotives-and-railcars-part-2

 

Nice article. However I disagree about the wheels of the haulage wagon rotating the opposite way to the wheels of the narrow gauge Guinness loco.

Think of the loco side on. Loco set to travel to right. Loco wheels will be rotating clockwise, they rest on the rollers which will therefore be going anti-clockwise.
Single set of reduction gears so smaller gear on same shaft as rollers so also going anti-clockwise, meshed with larger gear of pair which rotates clockwise as do the haulage waggon's wheels on the same axle.

 

Thanks Mike, interesting!

 

Further to this, I understand that wooden wedges were used between the loco and the haulage wagon to prevent the loco from oscillating.

Keith

 

Thank you too, Keith.

 

As this appears relevant, the 1903 NER Railcar was running on the GCR during yesterdays Gala.....
...and was very popular!

 

Very popular indeed!

 

There is a project to bring back one of the narrow gauge Sentinel steam railcars from Sri Lanka for restoration. As I understand it, the project is active but considerably delayed by local bureaucracy. Project links below but not much in the way of recent news.

https://en-gb.facebook.com/groups/Sentinelrailcar/

https://sites.google.com/site/ngrailcar/home

 

Thank you, really interesting. As you say, not much action on the facebook page or the website recently.

 

Thank you for bringing that to our attention. Strange that they do not refer to it as a Sentinel Cammell, which is what it is according to their website, and no doubt the worksplate if it still has one (attached from an LNER unit).

 

I just had another look at the Facebook page, a bit of recent activity from February 15.

https://en-gb.facebook.com/groups/Sentinelrailcar/

Some (rather sad) photos under the post from Asanka Ranawickrema, and under the post from Colin Hamling a response with a bit of better news:

“They are not going to be scrapped in the near future. 331 is being prepped to move to the new national railway museum and 332 has been brought down to it to go under the shelter until our negotiations are complete. Which will hopefully be soon.”

 

I remembered that there was an old thread in the narrow gauge section about the Sri Lankan Sentinels, so it probably makes more sense to put updates there:

https://www.national-preservation.c...inel-railcar-preservation-trust.675313/page-2