Seaton Burn Wagonway

Seaton Burn Wagonway
Horse-drawn chaldron carts
Route of the horse-drawn tram (blue) and funicular (red), mines (circles) and archaeological digs (square)
Gauge :	1372 mm ( Scottish gauge )
Top speed:	10-12 km / h

The Brunton and Shields Railway, or the Seaton Burn Wagonway, was a 4- foot- 6- inch (1,372 mm) gauge near Newcastle upon Tyne from 1826 to 1920, a partly horse-drawn and partly rope-operated factory railway .

history

The Brunton and Shields Railway was built by Benjamin Thompson on behalf of the Grand Allies and inaugurated in 1826. It ran east to west over Burradon and Camperdown . Initially, it did not serve the nearby Burradon colliery, as it operated a separate wagonway.

It was built from the Brunton colliery in sections from 1826 and expanded in 1837 to the banks of the Tyne near Wallsend and North Shields. The inclined levels were either operated like funicular railways, where loaded wagons pulled the empty wagons uphill, or via winches driven by stationary steam engines. From 1878 the name changed to Seaton Burn Wagonway. Eventually the railway line was built towards Backworth to gain access to the Blyth and Tyne Railway , which was part of the North Eastern Railway in the 1920s .

business

The Brunton and Shields Railway had five inclined elevators operated by stationary steam engines. The method of propelling freight trains via ropes moved back and forth by stationary steam engines was invented and patented by Benjamin Thompson, but only one of the five inclined levels was operated by the reciprocating ropes.

Stationary steam engines were built along the entire railway line at intervals of 1½ miles (2.4 km). The ropes ran on rollers, between the rails, from one steam engine to the other to drive the wagons. When a wagon left a station, it would take another rope with it, technically called the tail rope, which was used to bring the next train back that was going in the opposite direction. The rope that pulled the first pull was then pulled back to the tail rope and from the former, which then became the front rope.

Two trains meet at a station on the Brunton and Shields Railway: They are each pulled to the station. The train that passes the switch at 'e' to get to the other track necessarily comes with the rope from pulley 'No. 2 'who is at the next station. The same obstacle arises for train 'c' due to the rope running in the opposite direction at the station.

The Brunton and Shields Railway had only one track with meeting points on the steam engines. The cars drove at 10-12 mph (16-19 km / h). However, spanning the ropes and moving them from one track to another reduced the average speed, as shown in the following table, which was created with a gross load of 31 tons on a windy day:

Inclined plane	Length in yards	Length in km	Time in motion	stay
1. Inclined plane	1287 yards	1,177 km	05:10 min	08:20 min
2. Inclined plane	2316 yards	2,118 km	07:30 min	04:30 min
3. Inclined plane	1562 yards	1,428 km	06:30 min	06:00 min
4. Inclined plane	1760 yards	1.61 km	06:00 min	05:00 min
5. Inclined plane	2068 yards	1,891 km	05:10 min	00:00 min
Total:	8993 yards	8,223 km	30:20 min	23:50 min

The loaded wagons ran by themselves on three of the inclined planes, and the rope was only used to pull back the empty wagons. With the others, the full wagons were pulled and the empty ones returned with the rope. Only one rope was used on four of the inclined planes as the gravity of the wagons made the other unnecessary. This mode was very advantageous in terms of simplicity and economy compared to the reciprocating system, which required two ropes per train.