Leek and Manifold

Hellooo, me again!

Just out of curiousity, haaaaaas any attempt been made concerning a preservation attempt on the Leek and Manifold? Just watched a video here http://www.forgottenrelics.co.uk/films/quaint.html and it looks like a lovely location! Just wondered if it had ever been mooted/is possible???

 

Unfornately the Manifold Way is the busiest footpath/cyclepath in Staffordshire and the formation is not big enough for both without destroying it.

The LMS passed the trackbed on to the local authority in 1937 who concreted it and has been popular ever since, even though small sections of it are now also used a roads.

I firmly recommend hiring a bycycle at Waterhouses, either from either the old station yard or from the farm adjacent to where the line crosses the main road - a very enjoyable day out for all.

 

Sense has got to prevail on this one - it runs from nowhere and goes nowhere.

I always think of it as a private test bed for Calthrop's theories without having to travel out to the Barsi.

Wouldn't object to stumping up some cash for a Kitson replica, should that ever come to pass.

 

I've always been a little puzzled that the closure of the L&M didn't attract the same kind of protest or emotion that closure of the L&B did a year later - the pictures of the last day are particularly depressing (hardly any passengers, and it snowed). Maybe it's because, as the Marquis points out, it went from one small village to an even smaller one, with only very small communities en route - superb scenery (the popularity of the foot/cyclepath is well justified), but hardly any residents to care about it after the day trippers had gone back to Stoke or Sheffield. If only the NSR hadn't made the odd decision to build the Leek-Waterhouses section to standard gauge, and if only the idea of extending towards Buxton had happened, it would have been a world-beater.

Pipe dream moment: build the Welshpool a replica Kitson and a couple of primrose yellow carriages (if they'd fit round the sharp curves - the L&M carriages were enormous) to go with the transporter wagon they've just bought...

 

what a lovely clip

http://www.kachuzyn.fsnet.co.uk/homepage.htm

 

Just about sums it up.

This line was almost built to be a preserved railway. If it had survived into the 1960's, it probably would have been.

As has been said repeatedly on here in the last few months, now is not the time to start something new!

 

As you said, the very remoteness made for sparse traffic and minimal protest at the closure. Winter traffic was next to nothing, and only the creamery at the top end kept the traffic going. Conversely, I've always been puzzled at the protests that the L&B, when so many of the (for example) Col. Stephens lines just sort of gently breathed their last and returned to slumber, letting the spiders spin their webs undisturbed.

Didn't Calthrop have an extra-marital affair down in Devon (I know his wife divorced him when he was 60+ because of his irascible temper) which was the reason for Jones - Calthrop couplers being adopted (or was it because Calthrop was matey with Szlumper). I forget now.

Mixed gauge from Sheen & Hartington, I seem to remember. Incidentally, Hartington signalbox has been restored and is a very pleasant stop-off on the Tissington Trail. Somewhere I've got a sectional appendix that mentions the L&MVLR, I must try and find it sometime.........

 

A frequent topic of converstation in Llanfair, but it aways stalls with the forseen problem that 2-6-4T do not like steep gradients. We have found with our 2-6-2Ts that on the 1in29 Golfa Bank the locomotive tries to sit on it's rear truck thus robbing adhesion from the driving wheels. With a huge rear overhang, a bogie on the rear and the known axle weights (below) it is assumed the Kitsons to be rather light footed: -

i.e. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5or81VtqFA !!! LOL

Weight Diagram (Robert Gratton Book page 269)
Front Pony - 2T 10 cwt
Driver 1: 4T 18 cwt
Driver 2: 4T 18 cwt
Driver 3: 4T 19.25 cwt
Rear Bogie: 9T 5cwt
Total 26T 16cwt

The L&M carriages are actually only 2ft longer than the green ex Hungarian MAV carriages already in traffic on the W&L and are slightly narrower. They also probably suit a retro L&M livery in my opinion, after all we did put SLR No.85 in North Staffordshire Railway "Madder Lake" and yellow lining in the 1990s to imitate what the 2-6-4Ts carried between 1912 and 1923.

The W&L does have Calthrop links, he did a fair bit of work towards the planning of the line, but the Cambrian insisted that their own engineer a Mr. Jones should be incharge of the project. However, Calthrop's assistant Frederick Ward was employed to survey the W&L and of course he did the same on the Leek & Manifold. The loading gauge of the W&L is certainly generous and Calthrop did propose transporters for the W&L in his proposals. The Zillertalbahn transporter was bought to carry a flail mower, but who knows, maybe one day we'll give in to temptation! There would be a few checks needed, notably the parapets of the cattle creeps on the Golfa bank, Brynellin viaduct and a few arching trees, though.

 

[quote="Marquis DeCarabas] Didn't Calthrop have an extra-marital affair down in Devon (I know his wife divorced him when he was 60+ because of his irascible temper) which was the reason for Jones - Calthrop couplers being adopted (or was it because Calthrop was matey with Szlumper). I forget now.
..[/quote]

He invented an early form of parachute in circ 1910 for aviators called the "Guardian Angel" and argued with RFC during WW1 than their pilots should carry parachutes, but they argued that issuing parachutes meant their pilots were less likely to nurse a damaged plane back to base.
They were not favoured untill after WW1 by which time the Americans had invented the rip-cord parachute.

As for the sex lives of Narrow Gauge pioneers, how about Robert Fairlie's (then rather scandelous) elopement with Lizzie Anne England without her father's permission (who of course was George England, builder of the Ffestiniog 0-4-0s and Little Wounder). George England attempted to sue Fairlie as he had promised to keep away, but in court it was discovered Lizzie was in fact illegitement, which shamed George and meant he had no right to stop them anyway. George Percival Spooner (designer of FR locos "James Spooner", the single fairlie "Taliesin" and "Merddin Emrys") was far more colourful, since he got his housemaid pregnant and was banished to India in shame by the rest of the family!
All from P.J.G Ransom's "Narrow Gauge Steam" - a much better read than Jane Austen!!!

 

I'm pretty sure the point is made in Boyd Volume 1 of the FR that George Percival Spooner was a very competent engineer and manager and that the FR lost a decent person when he was sent away in disgrace.

Obviously contraception wasn't quite as available, or as socially acceptable, as it is now.

 

I assume this was a book printed on rice paper?

 

I seem to remember reading somewhere that some of the rolling stock went to the Kelvedon and Tollesbury line in Essex, anyone else shed any light on this!

 

Kelvedon & Tollesbury was a standard gauge line........

 

As I remember the Keys & Porter book from 40-odd years ago, disposal was: E.L. Calthrop (no.1) cut up at Waterhouses; all* goods stock scrapped at Waterhouses (*exception follows); all coaching stock burnt then remains scrapped ditto. Only escapees were: J.B. Earle (no.2), stored at Crewe (anyone know why...?) but then gas-axed, and; one of the transporter wagons, regauged from 2' 6" to 2' for use on the Ashover - where it didn't perform as well as expected. Remains hung around for ages. Think this was the only item of L&MVLR origin that ran anywhere else.

 

There is one item of rolling stock from the Manifold Valley that has been preserved and is now back in traffic....

http://www.knottycoachtrust.org.uk/history127.html

Ok, so it wasn't on the L&MVLR!

 

The nearest thing left is the Barsi Railway 4-8-4T on a plinth in India - a stretched version of the 2-6-4T with inclined cylinders presumably to clear the front bogie. Its livery is similar to NSR 'Madder Lake" with yellow lining.

 

Here is a picture of Sir Alec as preserved at Secunderabad. Would look marvelous at Hulme End!!



Cheers

Alan

 

If money was no object, a replica L&M would be a dream to see, regardless of whether it's needed or even practical! One of the few "missing pieces" of English narrow gauge history