Links:
The Basingstoke Canal Railway: Modern use of the Narrow Gauge by Nick Lewis
The Basingstoke Canal: The Basingstoke Canal Railway
Flickr: Tags: Basingstoke Canal
Dr Neil Clifton (CC-SA) from geograph
During the restoration on Basingstoke Canal a narrow gauge railway was used between 1975 and 1982. The railway was employed as road access to the canal was poor. It used small industrial locomotives and tippers and was initially used to remove silt. As the restoration of the canal progressed the track was lifted and moved and used for transporting bricks, sand and other building materials for renovation of locks. It was then moved again and used for transporting clay to re-puddle the water channel. At one point the railway ran along side the main line from London to Southampton.
A canal railway would make an interesting prototype for a model using Nigel Lawton skips and locomotives in OO9 or kbscale kits in O16.5 or O14. As far as I know none of the Basingstoke locomotives are available in either scale so an accurate model would require scratch building. However I'd be more inclined to use it as inspiration for a freelance canal railway with kit built locomotives. Another option would be to include an OO9 canal railway on a standard gauge layout as there are many places where main line railways lines run past canals.
3 comments:
Let David at KBscale know what locos you're interested in. He'll probably add them to his "list".
Are you following me around? Not only were you looking at NWNGR lines to Bettws as I was starting my own, now you raise an interest in a line along my local canal. Walking the dog along it I can't work out how they got those parallel lines and skip emptying elevations. Must have been a load of sleepers used in manufacturing the structures!
Stephen - I've no definate plans to build an O-14 canal railway. If I did build a canal railway I'd use the Basingstoke Canal Railway as inspiration rather than a prototype. David already has a couple of locos in his range which I like the look of and will be on my wish list if I find the time, space and money for an O-14 layout.
Graham - It's a small world, Basingstoke Canal is only 30 miles away from me. I've not been there though! I can't remember where I found out about the railway but I though I'd blog about it so I've got the links if I decide to build a canal railway in future.
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