Bessbrook & Newry track

[Maitland]

Has anyone seen any photos of Bessbrook & Newry pointwork around goods sidings? I'm trying to work out how the plateway- style plain wheeled wagons crossed the conventional track.

[jhb171achill]

I have photos somewhere which I will post, which were taken by jhb171senior in the 30s.

[Garfield]

I'd be interested to see these photos, too, JB... it was a fascinating little line.

[jhb171achill]

The tramcars had conventional railway wheels but the goods vehicles had a unique type which could run on rail or road. There was a third line for electricity.

[Mol_PMB]

I know I'm resurrecting an old thread. 

I bought some new books from the RPSI recently and added to my order the booklet about the Bessbrook and Newry Tramway. This is closely based on A.T.Newham's original work from the 1970s but reprinted in a modern form with the photos reproduced to a larger size and a better standard.

The IRRS has a few photos of the line in their collection, but many are also in the book:

https://www.flickr.com/search/?user_id=142947080%40N07&view_all=1&text=bnt

A bit on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessbrook_and_Newry_Tramway

This site on uniforms has a nice selection of photos too:

http://www.tramwaybadgesandbuttons.com/page148/page4/styled-259/page682.html

I hadn't realised that that surviving tram in Cultra had been so heavily modified from its original condition.

Over on this thread, @jhb171achill posted a photo which doesn't appear in the book or elsewhere online, intriguingly it shows a van with doors in the side, whereas all the other photos of vans I've seen appear doorless (maybe the doors were in the end, or on one side only?)

https://irishrailwaymodeller.com/topic/6037-from-the-catacombs/#findComment-130009

This may be the other side of the same van, though if so the wheels have been replaced at some stage:

Relating to the decade-old question at the start of this thread, this photo from a Facebook site shows something of the complexity of the pointwork. The whole system didn't have many points, and not all routes were usable by the flangeless wagons (for example, the turning loops at each end were only suitable for flanged wheels). Going over these points, the flangeless wheels on one side must have had to bump over the raised running rails. There seem to have been very few points where the wagons had a choice of route, but there must have been 3 or 4. 

What a fascinating little line! I must avoid getting distracted into a narrow-gauge modelling whim...

It looks like someone else has had a go:

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/180079-volks-electric-black-rock-station-diorama-and-other-early-electric-traction/#findComment-5213273

 

[jhb171achill]

3 hours ago, Mol_PMB said:

I know I'm resurrecting an old thread. 

I bought some new books from the RPSI recently and added to my order the booklet about the Bessbrook and Newry Tramway. This is closely based on A.T.Newham's original work from the 1970s but reprinted in a modern form with the photos reproduced to a larger size and a better standard.

The IRRS has a few photos of the line in their collection, but many are also in the book:

https://www.flickr.com/search/?user_id=142947080%40N07&view_all=1&text=bnt

A bit on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessbrook_and_Newry_Tramway

This site on uniforms has a nice selection of photos too:

http://www.tramwaybadgesandbuttons.com/page148/page4/styled-259/page682.html

I hadn't realised that that surviving tram in Cultra had been so heavily modified from its original condition.

Over on this thread, @jhb171achill posted a photo which doesn't appear in the book or elsewhere online, intriguingly it shows a van with doors in the side, whereas all the other photos of vans I've seen appear doorless (maybe the doors were in the end, or on one side only?)

https://irishrailwaymodeller.com/topic/6037-from-the-catacombs/#findComment-130009

This may be the other side of the same van, though if so the wheels have been replaced at some stage:

Relating to the decade-old question at the start of this thread, this photo from a Facebook site shows something of the complexity of the pointwork. The whole system didn't have many points, and not all routes were usable by the flangeless wagons (for example, the turning loops at each end were only suitable for flanged wheels). Going over these points, the flangeless wheels on one side must have had to bump over the raised running rails. There seem to have been very few points where the wagons had a choice of route, but there must have been 3 or 4. 

What a fascinating little line! I must avoid getting distracted into a narrow-gauge modelling whim...

It looks like someone else has had a go:

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/180079-volks-electric-black-rock-station-diorama-and-other-early-electric-traction/#findComment-5213273

 

The picture I posted is one of several that Senior took on his one and only visit to the line in the 1940s. They were designed to run on the road too!

[Mol_PMB]

Just now, jhb171achill said:

The picture I posted is one of several that Senior took on his one and only visit to the line in the 1940s. They were designed to run on the road too!

Indeed. Would you be able to share any of the other photos here? I'd love to see them - there aren't many photos of the Bessbrook and Newry and I keep seeing the same ones in books and online.

[Galteemore]

3 hours ago, Mol_PMB said:

I know I'm resurrecting an old thread. 

I bought some new books from the RPSI recently and added to my order the booklet about the Bessbrook and Newry Tramway. This is closely based on A.T.Newham's original work from the 1970s but reprinted in a modern form with the photos reproduced to a larger size and a better standard.

The IRRS has a few photos of the line in their collection, but many are also in the book:

https://www.flickr.com/search/?user_id=142947080%40N07&view_all=1&text=bnt

A bit on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessbrook_and_Newry_Tramway

This site on uniforms has a nice selection of photos too:

http://www.tramwaybadgesandbuttons.com/page148/page4/styled-259/page682.html

I hadn't realised that that surviving tram in Cultra had been so heavily modified from its original condition.

Over on this thread, @jhb171achill posted a photo which doesn't appear in the book or elsewhere online, intriguingly it shows a van with doors in the side, whereas all the other photos of vans I've seen appear doorless (maybe the doors were in the end, or on one side only?)

https://irishrailwaymodeller.com/topic/6037-from-the-catacombs/#findComment-130009

This may be the other side of the same van, though if so the wheels have been replaced at some stage:

Relating to the decade-old question at the start of this thread, this photo from a Facebook site shows something of the complexity of the pointwork. The whole system didn't have many points, and not all routes were usable by the flangeless wagons (for example, the turning loops at each end were only suitable for flanged wheels). Going over these points, the flangeless wheels on one side must have had to bump over the raised running rails. There seem to have been very few points where the wagons had a choice of route, but there must have been 3 or 4. 

What a fascinating little line! I must avoid getting distracted into a narrow-gauge modelling whim...

It looks like someone else has had a go:

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/180079-volks-electric-black-rock-station-diorama-and-other-early-electric-traction/#findComment-5213273

 

That bloke on RMWeb has a penchant for the unusual. He has made a rather nice one of the horse tramway at Berkhamsted, which we used to live near, and which was also in HC and RM Casserley’s patch. Indeed, until I had some dealings with Richard’s artist daughter,  I had no idea that for many years I lived within a few miles of an SLNCR nameplate in deepest Buckinghamshire! I love the speed blur he’s done to suggest a WCML Express. Might be an idea for his B and N diorama - blurred teak high on the viaduct! It was always a highlight of the train journey to Dublin, looking over as we passed to spot the trackbed, which is still extant there I think even if long vanished within the confines of Newry town. In many ways it was ahead of its time with its carbon-neutral, multi-modal operation. 

Edited 22 minutes ago by Galteemore

[jhb171achill]

24 minutes ago, Mol_PMB said:

Indeed. Would you be able to share any of the other photos here? I'd love to see them - there aren't many photos of the Bessbrook and Newry and I keep seeing the same ones in books and online.

I’ll fish them out when I’m home this evening!