Fawley Hill, The Steepest Gradient for any Standard Gauge Railway, in the UK
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- čas přidán 18. 05. 2024
- During the Vintage Transport Festival, where my son and I were operating Warton Rd; gauge 3 layout. We were next to the Loco's pulling hard up this Gradient, filling the workshop area with steam. Happy Days 🙂
Express head code too. I bet Sir William could hear the train coming up the hill from where he rests
It was loud 😳 I was there exhibiting Warton Rd for two days never heard anything like it!
I was also there and the noise is incredible
I was there for two days exhibiting Warton Rd, Gauge 3 layout, at one point it was so loud; I was sure it was coming through the shed door 😳🤣😂
@@Kingscleremodelrailway cool I was on melton Mowbray there to and at points we would have crashes because the noise was distracting us 😂
Nice video, likes from me...
Thanks for the visit
They certainly didn't bother about the gradient when that line was built! Were they planning to use geared locomotives?
Thank and I wasn’t aware of that, tbh, I am glad they didn’t, it was great the hear the locos, especially the tank engines; working hard to climb the grade!
We're just gonna ignore the lickey incline?
Thank you for your comment and no we are not ignoring the Lickey Incline. However the statement is true.
Fawley Hill is 1 in 13, Lickey Incline in 1 in 37.7, the difference is Lickey is a Mainline whereas Fawley is not.
Therefore, Fawley Hill is the steepest Standard gauge railway in the Uk.
Had to look this one up. As soon as I saw the name Sir William McAlpine, things became clear .... well, slightly clearer, at any rate.
Can we take it chimneys ALWAYS face uphill on this line??
I recall mentioning of a freight only line to a sandpit somewhere on the LMS accessed by a line which came up a 1 in 5 grade to regain 'the big railway', but this was a reader's letter in (IIRC) Railway Modeller, over 50 years ago and not all the regular correspondents -were-completely-sane- had 100% accurate recall.
Fascinating line ... thanks for sharing. 🙂
It was my first time there, a very interesting place, the McAlpine grounds was full of Very Large Ex Railway items, it is great that these were saved.
And no the chimney did not appear to be facing uphill 🙂 however, is well worth a visit and definitely try to have a ride on the line, it is something 😳🤣😂
The Lickey Incline is the steepest sustained adhesion standard-gauge main-line gradient in the UK (at 1 in 37.7), but there are indeed other grades that exceed that.
If we ignore funiculars (which are arguably just angled lifts, in which case a lift that goes vertically has a gradient of 1 in Zero), the steepest railway gradient in the UK would be on the Snowdon Mountain Railway (at 1 in 5.5), but that is neither standard gauge, adhesion worked, nor the mainline.
The Sheffield Supertram maxes out at 1 in 10, and *is* adhesion and standard-gauge, so is technically the steepest standard gauge gradient in the UK, but light rail/trams are built somewhat differently.
But there are a lot of extant gradients in the UK that beat the Lickey - for some examples: the incline to Bank on the DLR (1 in 17, Light Rail), Foxfield Bank (1 in 19, not the mainline), Marley's Bank on the Leighton Buzzard Railway (1 in 25, narrow gauge), Golfa Bank on the Welshpool railway (1 in 29, narrow gauge), and I believe the gradient on some of the tracks feeding into some of the London terminuses are *briefly* in the region of 1 in 30 as ramps thread lines over and under each other, but that's not sustained.
Of these, Golfa Bank is probably the best experience, as it's about a mile long, quite twisty and is regularly running steam passenger service.
(That said, my personal favourite is Aberffrwd bank on the Vale of Rheidol. It's not as steep as the lickey, but it is four miles of sustained and extremely twisty 1 in 50. The locomotives are the most powerful 2ft gauge steam locos built for a UK railway, and have a tractive effort to rival some standard gauge locos - and they *need* it).
The Lickey is certainly Impressive when considering the combination of its length and grade, and of the scale of traffic expected to use it, but there are steeper grades, longer grades and taller sustained grades in the UK.
@@SomeThrillingHeroics Thank you. In the late 90’s, I was one of the PWay Engineers working on the construction of the Croydon TramLink and remember Gravel Hill being 8%, generally; I worked on the GWML (Padd to Didcot) with gradients “around” 0% to 0.1%, so this was somewhat out of the ordinary and bloody steep, especially when; I had to walk up and down it; many times 😢 as we installed the ballast, sleeper etc……