Blakesley Miniature Railway

Blakesley Miniature Railway
Narrow-gauge Benzollok Petrolia with freight train, around 1909
Probable route around 1909/1910
Route length:	0.735 km
Gauge :	15 inches = 381 mm
Maximum slope :	1 in 24 = 42  ‰
Minimum radius :	Up to 1909: 80 feet = 24.3 m From 1909: 100 feet = 30.5 m
Legend 0 Blakesley Railway Station The Loop or The Circle Blakesley Hall Extension from 1909 0.8 Extension from 1910

The Blakesley Miniature Railway was a 735 meter long narrow gauge and garden railway in Blakesley in South Northamptonshire operated from 1903 to about 1946 .

location

The railway with a track width of 15 inches (381 mm) for about half a mile (800 m) and led from the station Blakesley the normalspurigen East and West Junction Railway to the power plant and the cow sheds at the rear end of Blakesley Hall. It was primarily used for the transport of coke , but also for chargeable passenger shuttle services to and from the nearby train station during events and for occasional children's amusement rides on the loop or circular part of the route.

history

The route was laid in 1903 by Charles William Bartholomew (1850-1919) on his estate at Blakesley Hall. He was a wealthy civil engineer with land ownership, major shareholder in the Great Central Railway and the East & West Junction Railway (E & WJR), self-appointed squire of the communities of Blakesley and Woodend. It opened in 1903 with a Cagney steam engine. The following year, 1904, another Cagney steam locomotive, possibly on loan, was temporarily used on the line now on display at Strumpshaw Hall Steam Museum in Norfolk. In 1905 the Benzollk Petrolia was built and put into operation. The route was extended to the farm's bungalow in 1909. For this purpose, a large part of the district and the triangular track were dismantled. The Blacolvesley locomotive was delivered on September 11, 1909. The Cagney was then awarded to the Sutton Hall Railway.

The route was extended to the cattle sheds in 1910 and then had a total length of 735 m (804 yards). The Petrolia benzene locomotive was rebuilt to look like a steam locomotive. The Cagney locomotive was returned from the Sutton Hall Railway in 1914. Charles William Bartholomew died on April 29, 1919. The heirs then tried in 1923 to sell the Cagney locomotive. In either 1928 or 1929 the section from the bungalow to the animal stalls was closed.

Blakesley Hall

After Charles William Bartholomew died in 1919, his widow occasionally fetched the trains from the three-track locomotive and wagon shed on public holidays ("on High Days and Holidays"). The train was used again in 1932 as a feeder to the Blakesley Show, in 1935 it operated for the silver jubilee of King George V and in 1937 to celebrate the coronation of King George VI.

The Cagney steam locomotive and possibly the Petrolia and part of the track system were sold to the Deans Mill Railway in 1936 . The justice of the peace Dorothy Elliot, a long-time family friend and secretary of the Wombwell Colliery acquired the remaining wagons and probably some track material in 1942 under dubious circumstances. It was later revealed that she had embezzled £ 91,630 from the colliery's funds, for which she was jailed. The sale of her home and possessions raised only £ 21,000 to repay the misappropriated funds.

From 1942 to around 1944, the main line was still used with tipping lorries pushed by hand to transport coke to the estate's own power station. Around 1946 the remains of the route were dismantled and the carts scrapped. When Sarah, the second wife of Charles William Bartholomew, with whom he had children Ivy and James, moved into her son's home in Norfolk in 1947, the manor's furniture was auctioned. The property was sold to the Hesketh family in 1949, but later changed hands several times. Sarah died in 1953 at the age of 89. After falling into disrepair for over ten years, Blakesley Hall was demolished in 1957.

Locomotives

Surname	Manufacturer	image	annotation
	Cagney		With wagons and lorries modified by Alex Wyatt
Petrolia	Groom & Tattersall from Towcester
Blacolvesley	Bassett-Lowke from Northampton		The locomotive, looking like a 4-4-4T steam locomotive, was powered by a NAG gasoline engine through a sophisticated Syncromesh transmission from Charles Wicksteed . Still exhibited on the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway as the world's oldest preserved combustion engine .

• 

  Blakesley Hall Miniature Railway at Blakesley Station on the East and West Joint Railway

• 

  Winter ride on the bridge at Blakesley Station on the East and West Joint Railway

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  2B locomotive based on the American model

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  2B2 tank locomotive 'Blacolvesley' with 15 HP NAG petroleum engine.jpg

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} TFC and Dick Bodily: Blakesley. Update February 5, 2019. Retrieved February 7, 2019.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Dick Bodily: The Blakesley Miniature Railway. June 2017 update. Retrieved February 7, 2019.

Coordinates: 52 ° 8 '42 "  N , 1 ° 5' 42"  W.