Campbeltown and Machrihanish Light Railway

Campbeltown and Machrihanish Light Railway
Atlantic by Andrew Barclay Sons & Co. , the last locomotive built for the Campbeltown and Machrihanish Light Railway, 1907
Gauge :	686 mm

The Campbeltown and Machrihanish Light Railway was a narrow gauge railway with a gauge of 686 mm (2 feet 3 inches ) on the Kintyre Peninsula , Scotland, between Campbeltown and the coal mining settlement of Machrihanish .

history

Coal has been mined on the Kintyre peninsula since 1498 at the latest. It was not of the highest quality, but it was abundant and easy and inexpensive to dismantle. From the mid-18th century, coal was the numerous Whiskey - Distilleries sold in the area of Campbeltown.

channel

In 1773, James Watt carried out survey work for a canal that would connect the coal mines to Campbeltown to minimize transportation costs. This 3 miles long Campbeltown and Machrihanish opened in 1794. It was later used less and less and finally abandoned in 1856. In 1875 the Argyll Coal and Canal Co. acquired the rights to the coal mine and the canal, but could not repair the latter. The company decided to use a better mode of transportation and evaluated building a railroad to Campbeltown.

Works railway

Princess with a coal train

In 1876 a narrow-gauge works railway was built between the Kilkivan Pit coal mine and Campbeltown over a length of 4.8 km , which partly followed the old canal before ending at a pier. It was used exclusively to transport coal. Two steam locomotives were used for this, Princess and Chevalier .

Local railroad

Argyll with a passenger car of the Kleinbahn

Since the volume of traffic for the mostly locally sold coal was very seasonal, the mine owners thought about how they could use their railway line more effectively in the summer months. Therefore, on the basis of the Light Railways Act, which came into force in 1896, you applied for the construction of a small train from Campbeltown to Machrihanish, on the west coast of the peninsula, to transport the increasing number of tourists due to steam navigation. Construction began in November 1905. A large part of the route followed the existing works line, but with smaller gradients and larger curve radii. At the same time, the works line was extended westward to the new terminal station in Machrihanish. The line was opened on August 18, 1906 after the construction work was completed. It was an instant success, transporting 10,000 passengers in the first three weeks of operation and making the previous horse-drawn carriages obsolete.

Before the First World War there was a mixture of passenger and freight traffic. When buses became increasingly available after the war, profitability sank. In 1931 summer tourism had already decreased significantly. In May 1932, passenger traffic was therefore stopped. In November 1933, the railroad was shut down, and after that the last trains only drove when the track material was scrapped.

Maisel Oil Company

The Maisel Oil Company, which had a patent for coal liquefaction , acquired the coal mine including the railway line around 1929, which it put back into operation. However, production was not profitable, so passenger traffic was discontinued in 1931 and the line was shut down again in 1932.

The Franco British Co. acquired the coal mine of Argyll as early as June 1928 , and on August 13, 1928 one of its directors, Mr. Maisel, declared at the meeting of the Campbeltown City Council that gas would be produced in a planned coal liquefaction plant and transferred to the city could be sold. According to a report to the shareholders, a test facility of the Aicher low-temperature coking process was in operation for 14 days under the supervision of Mr. Aicher. Tests have shown yields of 154 to 331 liters of crude oil per ton of coal. In addition, 5.5 m ³ / t gas and the remaining coke fell off during the process . In June 1929 the Franco British Company was re-established under the name Coal Carbonization Trust and mentioned in its brochure that 1,000 long tons (1,016 t) of coal are mined per day, which results in 550 kg / t coke. Almost immediately afterwards, the Kilkivan mine was abandoned and the entire project 'melted like snow on a mound'. On February 14, 1933 there was a question in Parliament regarding the worrying business practices of this company.

Rolling stock

Locomotives

Surname	Manufacturer	Type	Serial number	Construction year	Remarks
Pioneer	Andrew Barclay & Co	0-4-0 WT (conversion to 0-4-2 WT)	unknown	1876	Delivery for the original factory railway. Was not used on the C & MLR.
Chevalier	Andrew Barclay & Co	0-4-0 ST (conversion to 0-4-2 ST)	269	1885	New construction in 1926 from old parts of the Princess
Princess	Kerr Stuart	0-4-2 T	717	1900	Skylark- class, scrapped before 1931
Argyll	Andrew Barclay & Co	0-6-2 T	1049	1906
Atlantic	Andrew Barclay & Co	0-6-2 T	1098	1907	Identical to Argyll

Passenger cars

RY Pickering & Co. from Wishaw supplied four bogie passenger cars for the railway line in 1906. Each car had a passenger compartment in the middle with 64 tram-like wooden seats and platforms at both ends. Two more cars were delivered by Pickering in 1907, with the second having a luggage compartment in the middle.

The wagons survived the closure in 1934 and were transported to Trench Point on the other side of Campbeltown Loch , where they were used as holiday homes. During the Second World War they were confiscated by the Admiralty. After the end of the war, they fell into disrepair until the frames were scrapped in 1958.

Freight wagons

Works railway

The works railway of the coal mine probably used existing mine trucks when it was put into operation in 1876. In 1902 there were 18 two-axle flat cars, each of which could transport four wagons. These were small mine carts that could each be loaded with 480 kg (9½ cwt ) coal. The mine carts were placed across the direction of travel on short pieces of track attached to the flat wagons.

Local railroad

With the new construction of the small railway in 1906, the lorry transporters were replaced by conventional bulk goods wagons. A series of two-axle, side-open wagons with a capacity of 3¼ t were manufactured by Hurst Nelson Ltd. procured from Motherwell . Like the earlier coal wagons, it had these center buffers and couplings. Later there were wagons with a capacity of 4½ t. There were about 150 coal wagons in total, all of which were owned by the Campbeltown Coal Co. and not the railway line.

There were also some freight cars that belonged to the railway line. RY Pickering delivered a 7 t brake car. The same company supplied a milk wagon that was open at the side, the design of which was similar to that of the 4½ t wagon, but with protruding beams to create additional space for milk cans. Last but not least, the railway had a removable snow plow and a small construction trailer for maintenance work.

Train stations

The train stations and stops were at Campbeltown, Plantation Halt, Moss Road Halt, Lintmill Halt, Drumlemble Halt, Machrihanish Farm Halt, Trodigal Halt, and Machrihanish. None of the stations had platforms, but Machrihanish had a wooden shed with a corrugated iron roof.

literature

• Farr, AD (1967) The Campbeltown & Machrihanish Light Railway , The Oakwood Press, ISBN 0-85361-351-6
• Macmillan, Nigel SC (1970) The Campbeltown & Machrihanish Light Railway , Newton Abbott: David & Charles
• Wham, Alasdair (2009). Trossachs and West Highlands. Exploring the Lost Railways . Wigton: GC Books Ltd. ISBN 978-1-872350-34-9 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ WJK Davies: ABC Narrow Gauge Railways , Ian Allan, around 1961, pp. 39-40
2. ↑ Nigel SC Macmillan: The Campbeltown & Machrihanish Light Railway , Plateway Press, 3rd Edition, 2000, p. 12, ISBN 1-871980-17-8 . See also Campbeltown and Machrihanish Light Railway .
3. ^ Parent Coal Carbonization Company. (Hansard)
4. ^ Wham, p. 119 and p. 124

Coordinates: 55 ° 25 ′ 15.3 "  N , 5 ° 40 ′ 37.8"  W.