Out of curiosity, has anyone heard anything about these four quarry tanks? The location lists an early wheels museum and the Speedway Fountation, however I've found nothing of an early wheels museum in Terre Haute, and there is no mention of a steam engine on the Speedway Fountation website. The other two are listed as stored.
http://steamlocomotive.info/vlocomotive ... splay=1588
http://steamlocomotive.info/vlocomotive ... splay=1590
http://steamlocomotive.info/vlocomotive ... splay=1591
http://steamlocomotive.info/vlocomotive ... splay=1592

I don't know anything about the engines, but I found the following statement on
a Terre Haute postcard website: "The Early Wheels Museum was located on Wabash Avenue, but was totally destroyed by fire in the mid 1980s. Fortunately, prior to the fire, several trains and cars kept there had been moved to Indianapolis."

Dave Withers
Louisville

I believe at least one of them is at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum. The others are stored in Terre Haute.

Bill

I am also curious about where two of the Dinorwic Quarries locomotives are actually located in Langstaff, Ontario. Are they in private ownership or on display? As an aside, I find it interesting that no organization to my knowledge has restored one of these to operation in its original gauge of 22 3/4".

I'm just suprised there isn't nearly as much information on these locomotives as I would have thought...

This link tells you where some of these engines are
http://www.railways.incanada.net/Articl ... 988_6.html

Dont know how current this info is.

Mike

That site appeared to have a credit date of 1988.

We know this about equipment...
The Edward Sholto has moved from Illinois back to the UK
http://www.geoffspages.co.uk/raildiary/esholto_htm_files/41.jpg
http://www.quarryhunslet.mste.co.uk/public/Edward_Sholto.php

Marchlyn has returned to the UK as well, at Statfold Barn Railway
http://www.heritagerailway.co.uk/news/avonside-quarry-engine-back-from-usa-after-45-years

Elidir returned to the UK and was at Leighton Buzzard, but now Llanberis Lake Railway
http://www.stayinwales.co.uk/wales_picture.cfm?p=2465

But as far as I can tell the others are more or less still where they were before...
O.

There are two Elidir's in the UK.
The 'original' one built by Avonside in 1933 (and a sister to "Machlyn") returned from Canada and is now undergoing a very extensive overhaul by its owner in Leighton Buzzard.
The other is a quarry Hunslet on the Lamberis Lake Railway which was renamed "Elidir".

There is a story behind that odd gauge, 22 3/4". Both the Penrhyn and Dinorwig quarry systems had their origins in early horse tramways with very crude track, especially the temporary lines along the quarry terraces. At Dinorwig apparently they used iron bars dropped into slots cut in wooden sleepers on the lighter man or horse worked lines.

As the gauge varied rather a lot they used double flanged wheels which were free to slide along fixed axles. You will realise this required some unusual turnouts, some of which were stub points with swivelling single rails in place of a crossing.

The gauge was 2ft, but measured between the centres of the rail head. Once they got around to using locomotives with conventional wheels the gauge became 22 3/4".

However, there was no conventional rolling stock to go with the locomotives once they were preserved, which is why they tended to get re-gauged to 60cm.

Tim

I imagine if someone were saving old locomotives in the 1960s, they were not interested in building an oddball track style on which to operate, so few cars were saved to match. Here is an aerial view of the Penrhyn yard showing the track described in the previous post. I guess you could call these "pointless switches".
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrismullineux/5108427960

I don't think I would care to explain that design of turnout to H.M. Railway Inspectorate for passenger use, and certainly not to the peppery ex-Royal Engineers Major who dealt with such things at that time. The surviving double flange wagons I have seen had no brakes whatsoever.

There is a group based on the Penhryn railway who seem to be tooling up for serious business. http://www.penrhynrailway.co.uk . I notice they are not using double flanged stock.

Tim

Thanks for the link to the Penrhyn group. Their project is admirable, and to my understanding there is a significant amount of the industrial landscape intact in that area. They were good to respond to my request about the gauge of the reconstruction... it will be a 600mm gauge railway, which is a mere 3/4" wider.

I imagine if the whole business (oddball track and double flanged equipment) had survived in the 60s, it would have been grandfathered as the surviving rack railways have managed.

As for oddball flange systems, I think some cars from the Hunt system survive at the Laws Museum in Bishop, CA, but I have not heard of any others.
O. Anderson

This particular system had no grandfather rights. Lord Penhryn's private railway carried his slate from his quarry over his land to Port Penrhyn; guess who owned the port. The railway carried no passengers except for the quarry workers.

To become a public passenger carrier would have required at the least a new Light Railway Order - and compliance with modern legislation.

Tim

Looks like all three are going back to the UK. North Norfolk Railway director Julian Birly, who only set out to get one of the 0-4-0STs is taking all three. Here's the story on Heritage Railway:
http://heritagerailway.co.uk/news/three ... e-from-usa