Well, whatever the reasons for their curved profile, IMNSHO the BR Class 4 Standard tanks were just about the best looking engines of that type ever to run on our railways. Riddles got it Right!
Biased, moi?
I haven't checked, but I think the Class 4s were the last steam locomotives to work on rural BR branch lines - Lymington in 1967, and Killin in 1965 (?).
(BTW, Hornby-Dublo also got it right by introducing one of them into the range when the prototypes were almost brand-new!)
No-one would call it a "rural branch line" - but the Class 4s, among others (presumably whatever Nine Elms had spare), worked the Clapham Junction-Olympia "Kenny Belle" train until July 1967.
I think the reason for the curved profile was to squeeze them within the universal loading gauge, and so the designers used the standard coach profile. That's also why they had an extra 25 lbs pressure over the Fairburns. It was to make up for having slightly longer but narrower cylinders.
I hadn't realised until quite recently how may examples there were of designs that couldn't be adopted for more general use because their cylinders would catch on too many platform edges. This famously applied to many ex-GWR designs, but it has turned out there were other examples as well.
No-one would call it a "rural branch line" - but the Class 4s, among others (presumably whatever Nine Elms had spare), worked the Clapham Junction-Olympia "Kenny Belle" train until July 1967.
So they did - I'd forgotten about the Kenny Belle!
Yes, it must have been "tight" getting a Hall onto the West Highland Line for filming Harry Potter!
And, I understand, the DP1 Deltic scraped quite a few platforms in its day!
Hilariously, and because no one seems to have thought to stop it, on 16th August 1964 6858 Woolston Grange got to Huddersfield on a Bournemouth to Leeds...
It was going north up the GC and should have been swapped at Leicester Central.
Allegedly, because this was often a diesel working by then, control thought it was D6858 so didn't lay on a replacement.
At Nottingham Victoria it was taken onwards by an Annesley crew who'd never driven/fired one before (funnily enough).
At Sheffield Victoria it took off 3 foot of platform edge. A passing locomotive inspector witnessed this, but with no authority to countermand the roster, he joined the footplate...
By the time it got near Huddersfield the Loco Inspector was doing the driving, because neither they nor the crew were comfortable with the roster, but 'can't question control'
smashed away a few platform edges as it got further into Yorkshire.
Eventually removed from the train at Huddersfield (where the police had to be called because of the crowds of spotters surging towards it) on the orders of the Area Civil Engineer, it then languished in the MPD for over a week before being sent to Wolverhampton (GW) under tow via Stockport and Crewe as an out of gauge load at 35mph - absolutely not via the route it arrived on!
It's quite interesting is that, in that the GCR had quite a generous loading gauge. (Though not as generous as some folk fondly imagine.) GW engines worked regularly to Leicester and sometimes to Nottingham. In theory, Sheffield Vic should have had the same loading gauge.
Now the L&Y, of course, was a horse of a different colour and was more restricted.
The LBSCR had a slightly more generous loading gauge than other parts of the Southern Railway, and Maunsell modified the two J class 4-6-2Ts (Abergavenny and Bessborough) to conform.
The result was, in the opinion of many, an even more handsome locomotive than before:
It's quite interesting is that, in that the GCR had quite a generous loading gauge. (Though not as generous as some folk fondly imagine.) GW engines worked regularly to Leicester and sometimes to Nottingham. In theory, Sheffield Vic should have had the same loading gauge.
Now the L&Y, of course, was a horse of a different colour and was more restricted.
Indeed - though I can offer (multiple) Castles into Nottingham until that fun seems to have been stopped by the escapades of 6858. Halls and Granges into Nottingham routinely, Castles was pushing it.
Looking back on it, the GC seemed to be out of sight out of mind for too long really in the years before the end. It's a wonder there wasn't a serious accident.
One of my acquaintances from those days tells hair raising stories of the speeds he was doing on southbound unfitted freight services after the Banbury branch closed and you could go nearly 30 miles between signals...
Would part of that distance be along that curious section including Salcey Forest and Stoke Bruerne stations?
IIRC, the passenger trains serving those substantially-built stations ran for no more than four months after opening, but the line survived for decades as part of a useful east-west freight link...
Would part of that distance be along that curious section including Salcey Forest and Stoke Bruerne stations?
IIRC, the passenger trains serving those substantially-built stations ran for no more than four months after opening, but the line survived for decades as part of a useful east-west freight link...
That was on the SMJ (Stratford on Avond and Midland Junction Railway - which sort of looks on old maps like a saltire. Stoke Bruerne was on the SMJ just before it crossed the West Coast Main Line near Roade.
The SMJ crossed (under) the GC at Helmdon - went under the GC viaduct - and the other spur crossed *over* the GC, with a chord joining it*, at Woodford Halse.
*Technically there were two chords, but they seem only to have used the northern one, with the southern installed but truncated into sidings.
The southern chord was abandoned very early. I suspect it was only used for a year or two.
The GCR had some strategic interest in the SMJR, including possible routes to Birmingham and Worcester. But the alliance struck with the GWR meant that these had to be forgotten. All that remained were connections to Stratford, notably a TC to and from Marylebone, and of course the goods interchange - which grew more important in later years.
IIRC, the passenger trains serving those substantially-built stations ran for no more than four months after opening, but the line survived for decades as part of a useful east-west freight link...
The northern link of the Cardiff Railway to the Taff Vale only ever saw one goods train and was a sort of "withered arm" ever since. The Douglas branch in central Scotland was completely finished but never opened! (Both due to issues around running rights).
The Paisley and Barrhead Railway (Caley) had stations, but they were never opened because new tramways made the service unviable.
Similarly, the Great Central and Hull and Barnsley Railway had stations built, including a terminus at Doncaster (York Road). Still, they were never opened to passenger traffic due to a lack of perceived demand. I have an idea York Road was used to a very limited extent for race specials and similar workings, but I couldn't swear to it.
There are (or were) lots of stations which were used only very briefly, or not at all, but I'd not heard of the unopened Douglas line. Google isn't very helpful - anyone got a useful link?
There are (or were) lots of stations which were used only very briefly, or not at all, but I'd not heard of the unopened Douglas line. Google isn't very helpful - anyone got a useful link?
Would part of that distance be along that curious section including Salcey Forest and Stoke Bruerne stations?
IIRC, the passenger trains serving those substantially-built stations ran for no more than four months after opening, but the line survived for decades as part of a useful east-west freight link...
From personal experience of the area in the late 1950s/60s, neither Salcey Forest nor Stoke Bruerne stations could be described as "substantially built". Both were short single platforms with the small station house and no passing loop. As far as I know there was never a passing loop anywhere between Towcester and Ravenstone Wood Junction, which I think probably makes that the longest single line section in the UK. The line had passenger traffic for three months in the 1880s and not really all that much freight after that. Most freight that used it ran at night. It was known locally as the Banana Line because in LMS days banana trains were worked over it from Avonmouth to a depot near St Pancras.
Almost the only passenger services that ever ran on it after the 1880s were occasional specials on Towcester race days.
I only ever saw one train working on the line, which was an 8F and some wagons which crossed the bridge at Roade. It may have been in the process of dumping them there for or collecting them from storage. And another stage, it had numerous (we're talking miles of) passenger carriages waiting to be scrapped. That included an LNWR corridor dining car with clerestory roof still in faded LMS, rather than BR maroon, livery. One of the reasons one could tell that was because the carriage numbers were serif.
Would part of that distance be along that curious section including Salcey Forest and Stoke Bruerne stations?
IIRC, the passenger trains serving those substantially-built stations ran for no more than four months after opening, but the line survived for decades as part of a useful east-west freight link...
From personal experience of the area in the late 1950s/60s, neither Salcey Forest nor Stoke Bruerne stations could be described as "substantially built". Both were short single platforms with the small station house and no passing loop. As far as I know there was never a passing loop anywhere between Towcester and Ravenstone Wood Junction, which I think probably makes that the longest single line section in the UK. The line had passenger traffic for three months in the 1880s and not really all that much freight after that. Most freight that used it ran at night. It was known locally as the Banana Line because in LMS days banana trains were worked over it from Avonmouth to a depot near St Pancras.
Almost the only passenger services that ever ran on it after the 1880s were occasional specials on Towcester race days.
I only ever saw one train working on the line, which was an 8F and some wagons which crossed the bridge at Roade. It may have been in the process of dumping them there for or collecting them from storage. And another stage, it had numerous (we're talking miles of) passenger carriages waiting to be scrapped. That included an LNWR corridor dining car with clerestory roof still in faded LMS, rather than BR maroon, livery. One of the reasons one could tell that was because the carriage numbers were serif.
Not many people know any of this!
Well, the stations were simple enough in layout, but the buildings seem quite substantial to me, bearing in mind that many stations in Kent were of single-storey wooden construction!
There are photos in the Middleton Press book Branch Lines Around Towcester which show the houses as still being inhabited, even whilst the closed line was only being used for wagon storage.
@Baptist Trainfan - thanks! Quite a complex of lines, with an equally complex history.
Travelling further down this rather overgrown branch line, or siding, it occurred to me to wonder if any other disused line, as long as that between Ravenstone Wood and Towcester (about 10 miles), has been employed for storage of wagons or coaches after closure.
It wasn't uncommon for sidings here and there to be used thus, even whilst the line(s) were still in operation - Churn Lane Siding (on the Hawkhurst branch), and the extensive sidings at Bexhill West, were full of wagons awaiting repair or scrapping, well before their respective closures in 1961 and 1964.
Another line in Sussex - the double-track electrified branch from near Haywards Heath to Ardingly and Horsted Keynes - was used for a time before closure in 1963 for the storage of new 4CEP units intended for the Kent electrification of 1961. The regular service trains (usually just a 2BIL or 2HAL) ran *single line* on the track not occupied by the stored units.
AIUI, a couple of crews were sent to move one or two of the units each day, to keep them in good condition (!), before replacing them at the other end of the queue. Granted, this is a sparsely-populated part of the country, but there doesn't seem to have been an issue with vandalism...
Correction - the Ardingly branch was used for the temporary storage of 4CEP units in 1959, prior to Phase 1 of the Kent Coast electrification in that year.
Crew A would take a 12-car rake (3 units) for a run, whilst Crew B moved the other units...
I hadn't heard about the Ardingly line being used to store new EMUs, but I believe that - after that? - it was used to store redundant carriages (some of which the Bluebell people purchased).
There was certainly a dump of withdrawn carriages, in the sidings on the Ardingly side of Horsted Keynes station, whilst the service to Seaford was still operating. The sidings are still used for stock storage. BR may also have used the former down line for storage, too.
When the passenger service ceased in 1963, the line from Copyhold Junction to Ardingly was retained for freight traffic, but AFAIK the rest of the track was lifted, apart from a long double-track stub at Horsted Keynes. This is still in existence, and the Bluebell people run occasional trains along it. Perhaps they would like to re-open to Ardingly!
They would, but things have been put on hold at the moment as they're running at a loss and money needs to be spent elsewhere. https://tinyurl.com/29w867u6
They would, but things have been put on hold at the moment as they're running at a loss and money needs to be spent elsewhere. https://tinyurl.com/29w867u6
Thanks! News to me, but I hope they overcome the financial difficulties (being experienced by other heritage railways AIUI), and link up with the network at Ardingly again one day.
I wasn't sure if the Hanson depot at Ardingly was still in use, and rail-connected.
Harking back (boringly? - I hope not!) to replica locomotives, I direct your attention to the various modern incarnations of the lovely 15-inch *Minimum Gauge* engines designed by the late, great, Sir Arthur Heywood (1847-1916):
One of Sir Arthur's engines - the 0-8-0T Muriel - survives in much rebuilt (and almost unrecognisable form!) as the Ravenglass & Eskdale's River Irt, but quite a few of his originals have been re-created in recent years, very much as he would have known them.
FWIW, these locomotives are (IMHO) really handsome machines, especially in Sir Arthur's favoured lined dark green livery, and AIUI some original Heywood rolling stock (along with modern replicas!) is available to work with them.
Narrow-gauge prototypes are easier to replicate, of course, being smaller than your average main-line Pacific, Atlantic, or Mountain! - and that part of the restored Lynton & Barnstaple Railway is all the more beautiful and impressive because of them...
Here's the replica 0-4-0T Katie (not Sir Arthur's best locomotive - the three 0-6-0Ts and the 0-8-0T were better) running on the now partially-restored Eaton Hall line for which the original was built:
The curious half-timbered carriage shed at the station is an original building, also designed by Heywood - the loco shed proper was at the Cuckoo's Nest branch terminus...
A shame that Perrygrove stopped being a Heywood recreation - I think it changed hands and of course they do need to balance the books. Is there still a Heywood brake van at New Romney? And is the Sand Hutton coach still at Ravenglass?
Nice. Thank you. My great aunt and her husband had a book about his railway at Duffield Bank. Although everything now looks quaint and antique, in his time Heywood was advocating a cutting edge technological solution, one which in a more basic form criss-crossed the Western Front in the 1914–18 war.
I believe that at Duffield Bank there was a narrow gauge sleeping car, presumably added so to demonstrate that it could be done.
Yes, and a dining car. Also some steep gradients and sharp curves. In the end the Army people decided that 15" was too narrow and went for "two foot" instead.
A rather cursory search of the Romney website reveals no mention of what happened to the Heywood stock Captain Howey acquired when the original Eaton Hall Railway closed. I think some, at least, was eventually returned to Eaton Hall when a small part of the railway was re-laid.
I can recall seeing the Heywood stock in service on the RHDR, back in the late 50s/early 60s (when the line was becoming rather run-down - the Captain said he'd be happy if it saw him out!). The Eaton coaches were painted dark green, and had had their roofs lowered a few inches to accommodate the RHDR's awkward loading gauge (that wretched tunnel under the road at New Romney...).
A comprehensive book about Sir Arthur Heywood is Howard Clayton's The Duffield Bank and Eaton Railways (Oakwood Press - March 1968). This, of course, only takes the history of the rolling stock up to the time of publication! It also gives details of Sir Arthur's little-known third railway - the unfinished line at Dove Leys (the family home, inherited after Sir Thomas Heywood died in 1897).
O! what wonderful rabbit-holes we do fall down into, sometimes!
Sir Arthur's father died in 1897 and he inherited Dove Leys, where he began to build another railway between the road, where there was a coal store, and the house. His intention was to extend to Norbury railway goods yard, but Colonel Clowes who owned the land in between refused to give him wayleave. Sir Arthur then extended the line southwards to nearby Dove Cliff farm, which was part of his estate, and thence to Rocester station. However he was again unable to obtain wayleave from his other neighbour, Colonel Dawson.
The railway was 15-inch gauge, though there had been an earlier 9-inch gauge line, about 100 yards long. 15-inch gauge motive power for construction of the railway was provided by Heywood's little 0-4-0T Effie, but she wasn't really needed when it proved impossible to extend the line for any meaningful distance, and she disappeared from view around 1911...though there is now a nice replica of her on the Cleethorpes Coast Railway:
Had Sir Arthur been able to reach one or other of the nearby main-line stations, the Dove Leys Railway would have been rather like the Eaton Railway, albeit perhaps less grandly ducal in character.
I can think of a couple of other *estate railways* - albeit not quite as Heywood might have designed them - in the Blakesley Miniature Railway (15-inch gauge) and the Sand Hutton Light Railway (18-inch gauge, though it started off as 15-inch gauge).
Do any others spring to mind? Note that these two were intended as proper working railways, for freight traffic as well as passengers, and must NOT be confused with pleasure lines designed for seaside day trippers and the like...
In Lincolnshire there were at least two large potato railways, although these were "two foot" gauge. Blakesley had a rather lovely steam-outline internal combustion 4-4-4T loco; this was at Perrygrove some years ago but I don't know where it is now.
Hmm. Some years ago, it was owned by a Dr Tebb, but surely someone would know/find out if it had been scrapped. It may simply be sitting in a shed, barn, or garage somewhere...
The Bassett-Lowke angle is unsurprising. Given the Northampton location they could have delivered it in the morning and been back at the factory for lunch.
Incidentally B-L’s lovely Charles Rennie Macintosh house is one of the few things really worth seeing if you ever find yourself in Northampton.
The other is the art deco Turkish baths (one of about a dozen left in the UK) - which IIRC Mr B-L paid for!
Incidentally B-L’s lovely Charles Rennie Macintosh house is one of the few things really worth seeing if you ever find yourself in Northampton.
I've never been to Northampton, but there used to be a reconstruction of at least one room in the Hunterian Art Gallery in Glasgow. Quite dazzling and a big change from his earlier work.
I don't know how, or why, they did it, but Hornby managed to attach the revered name of Bassett-Lowke to their unspeakably awful *Steampunk* range of travesties...
RCL Publications produced a wonderful (but expensive) book on Sir Arthur Heywood and his railways. I am lucky to have a copy of volume 1, volume 2 has yet to appear. Do look out for vol 2, and you can always try Abebooks for vol 1. A series dent in your wallet is likely.
Alas - books on any specialist subjects are often quite pricey these days.
The volume mentioned by @Sighthound looks to be about right £££-wise, if compared with similar exhaustive works on what is very much a niche interest. I dread to think of how much I paid for W J K Davies' monumental tome on Portuguese narrow-gauge railways a few years ago, but it was a Christmas present to myself...and I don't go out much any more, or have holidays etc. etc.
The modest, and much slimmer, Oakwood Press book by Howard Clayton, which was published in 1968 (and which I think I mentioned earlier) is available on eBay for about £20.
Thanks for the information about Sir Arthur Heywood. I know both of the locations fairly well but had never heard of him. Another interesting snippet to add to my local knowledge (I don't think I will be shelling out £££ for the book though).
I also recently learned that Spath, which is not far south of Dove Leys, was the site of the first automated level crossing in the UK. The railway it served is long gone - in fact I think it only lasted a few years after the crossing was installed.
Comments
Biased, moi?
I haven't checked, but I think the Class 4s were the last steam locomotives to work on rural BR branch lines - Lymington in 1967, and Killin in 1965 (?).
(BTW, Hornby-Dublo also got it right by introducing one of them into the range when the prototypes were almost brand-new!)
I hadn't realised until quite recently how may examples there were of designs that couldn't be adopted for more general use because their cylinders would catch on too many platform edges. This famously applied to many ex-GWR designs, but it has turned out there were other examples as well.
And, I understand, the DP1 Deltic scraped quite a few platforms in its day!
So they did - I'd forgotten about the Kenny Belle!
Hilariously, and because no one seems to have thought to stop it, on 16th August 1964 6858 Woolston Grange got to Huddersfield on a Bournemouth to Leeds...
It was going north up the GC and should have been swapped at Leicester Central.
Allegedly, because this was often a diesel working by then, control thought it was D6858 so didn't lay on a replacement.
At Nottingham Victoria it was taken onwards by an Annesley crew who'd never driven/fired one before (funnily enough).
At Sheffield Victoria it took off 3 foot of platform edge. A passing locomotive inspector witnessed this, but with no authority to countermand the roster, he joined the footplate...
By the time it got near Huddersfield the Loco Inspector was doing the driving, because neither they nor the crew were comfortable with the roster, but 'can't question control'
smashed away a few platform edges as it got further into Yorkshire.
Eventually removed from the train at Huddersfield (where the police had to be called because of the crowds of spotters surging towards it) on the orders of the Area Civil Engineer, it then languished in the MPD for over a week before being sent to Wolverhampton (GW) under tow via Stockport and Crewe as an out of gauge load at 35mph - absolutely not via the route it arrived on!
Now the L&Y, of course, was a horse of a different colour and was more restricted.
The result was, in the opinion of many, an even more handsome locomotive than before:
https://sremg.org.uk/steam/jclass.shtml
Indeed - though I can offer (multiple) Castles into Nottingham until that fun seems to have been stopped by the escapades of 6858. Halls and Granges into Nottingham routinely, Castles was pushing it.
Looking back on it, the GC seemed to be out of sight out of mind for too long really in the years before the end. It's a wonder there wasn't a serious accident.
One of my acquaintances from those days tells hair raising stories of the speeds he was doing on southbound unfitted freight services after the Banbury branch closed and you could go nearly 30 miles between signals...
IIRC, the passenger trains serving those substantially-built stations ran for no more than four months after opening, but the line survived for decades as part of a useful east-west freight link...
That was on the SMJ (Stratford on Avond and Midland Junction Railway - which sort of looks on old maps like a saltire. Stoke Bruerne was on the SMJ just before it crossed the West Coast Main Line near Roade.
The SMJ crossed (under) the GC at Helmdon - went under the GC viaduct - and the other spur crossed *over* the GC, with a chord joining it*, at Woodford Halse.
*Technically there were two chords, but they seem only to have used the northern one, with the southern installed but truncated into sidings.
The GCR had some strategic interest in the SMJR, including possible routes to Birmingham and Worcester. But the alliance struck with the GWR meant that these had to be forgotten. All that remained were connections to Stratford, notably a TC to and from Marylebone, and of course the goods interchange - which grew more important in later years.
The northern link of the Cardiff Railway to the Taff Vale only ever saw one goods train and was a sort of "withered arm" ever since. The Douglas branch in central Scotland was completely finished but never opened! (Both due to issues around running rights).
Similarly, the Great Central and Hull and Barnsley Railway had stations built, including a terminus at Doncaster (York Road). Still, they were never opened to passenger traffic due to a lack of perceived demand. I have an idea York Road was used to a very limited extent for race specials and similar workings, but I couldn't swear to it.
See "Spireslack" section here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caledonian_Railway_branches_in_South_Lanarkshire
Almost the only passenger services that ever ran on it after the 1880s were occasional specials on Towcester race days.
I only ever saw one train working on the line, which was an 8F and some wagons which crossed the bridge at Roade. It may have been in the process of dumping them there for or collecting them from storage. And another stage, it had numerous (we're talking miles of) passenger carriages waiting to be scrapped. That included an LNWR corridor dining car with clerestory roof still in faded LMS, rather than BR maroon, livery. One of the reasons one could tell that was because the carriage numbers were serif.
Not many people know any of this!
Well, the stations were simple enough in layout, but the buildings seem quite substantial to me, bearing in mind that many stations in Kent were of single-storey wooden construction!
https://publictransportexperience.blogspot.com/2011/05/riddle-of-ravenstone-wood.html
There are photos in the Middleton Press book Branch Lines Around Towcester which show the houses as still being inhabited, even whilst the closed line was only being used for wagon storage.
@Baptist Trainfan - thanks! Quite a complex of lines, with an equally complex history.
It wasn't uncommon for sidings here and there to be used thus, even whilst the line(s) were still in operation - Churn Lane Siding (on the Hawkhurst branch), and the extensive sidings at Bexhill West, were full of wagons awaiting repair or scrapping, well before their respective closures in 1961 and 1964.
Another line in Sussex - the double-track electrified branch from near Haywards Heath to Ardingly and Horsted Keynes - was used for a time before closure in 1963 for the storage of new 4CEP units intended for the Kent electrification of 1961. The regular service trains (usually just a 2BIL or 2HAL) ran *single line* on the track not occupied by the stored units.
AIUI, a couple of crews were sent to move one or two of the units each day, to keep them in good condition (!), before replacing them at the other end of the queue. Granted, this is a sparsely-populated part of the country, but there doesn't seem to have been an issue with vandalism...
Crew A would take a 12-car rake (3 units) for a run, whilst Crew B moved the other units...
When the passenger service ceased in 1963, the line from Copyhold Junction to Ardingly was retained for freight traffic, but AFAIK the rest of the track was lifted, apart from a long double-track stub at Horsted Keynes. This is still in existence, and the Bluebell people run occasional trains along it. Perhaps they would like to re-open to Ardingly!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMFjSGWnNMk
Thanks! News to me, but I hope they overcome the financial difficulties (being experienced by other heritage railways AIUI), and link up with the network at Ardingly again one day.
I wasn't sure if the Hanson depot at Ardingly was still in use, and rail-connected.
Bluebell deficit 2022: £1.4m; 2023: £200k.
Thanks! At least the line is still there, and being used.
The BR's deficit is not so bad for last year - hopefully, this year will see it shrink further...
https://www.miniature-locomotives.org.uk/taxonomy/term/258
One of Sir Arthur's engines - the 0-8-0T Muriel - survives in much rebuilt (and almost unrecognisable form!) as the Ravenglass & Eskdale's River Irt, but quite a few of his originals have been re-created in recent years, very much as he would have known them.
FWIW, these locomotives are (IMHO) really handsome machines, especially in Sir Arthur's favoured lined dark green livery, and AIUI some original Heywood rolling stock (along with modern replicas!) is available to work with them.
Narrow-gauge prototypes are easier to replicate, of course, being smaller than your average main-line Pacific, Atlantic, or Mountain! - and that part of the restored Lynton & Barnstaple Railway is all the more beautiful and impressive because of them...
Here's the replica 0-4-0T Katie (not Sir Arthur's best locomotive - the three 0-6-0Ts and the 0-8-0T were better) running on the now partially-restored Eaton Hall line for which the original was built:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf0lBvPbyy8&t=68s
The curious half-timbered carriage shed at the station is an original building, also designed by Heywood - the loco shed proper was at the Cuckoo's Nest branch terminus...
I believe that at Duffield Bank there was a narrow gauge sleeping car, presumably added so to demonstrate that it could be done.
This book is the "Bible" on these matters (I have an earlier edition): https://tinyurl.com/29hbfyuj
I can recall seeing the Heywood stock in service on the RHDR, back in the late 50s/early 60s (when the line was becoming rather run-down - the Captain said he'd be happy if it saw him out!). The Eaton coaches were painted dark green, and had had their roofs lowered a few inches to accommodate the RHDR's awkward loading gauge (that wretched tunnel under the road at New Romney...).
A comprehensive book about Sir Arthur Heywood is Howard Clayton's The Duffield Bank and Eaton Railways (Oakwood Press - March 1968). This, of course, only takes the history of the rolling stock up to the time of publication! It also gives details of Sir Arthur's little-known third railway - the unfinished line at Dove Leys (the family home, inherited after Sir Thomas Heywood died in 1897).
O! what wonderful rabbit-holes we do fall down into, sometimes!
Sir Arthur's father died in 1897 and he inherited Dove Leys, where he began to build another railway between the road, where there was a coal store, and the house. His intention was to extend to Norbury railway goods yard, but Colonel Clowes who owned the land in between refused to give him wayleave. Sir Arthur then extended the line southwards to nearby Dove Cliff farm, which was part of his estate, and thence to Rocester station. However he was again unable to obtain wayleave from his other neighbour, Colonel Dawson.
The railway was 15-inch gauge, though there had been an earlier 9-inch gauge line, about 100 yards long. 15-inch gauge motive power for construction of the railway was provided by Heywood's little 0-4-0T Effie, but she wasn't really needed when it proved impossible to extend the line for any meaningful distance, and she disappeared from view around 1911...though there is now a nice replica of her on the Cleethorpes Coast Railway:
https://locomotive.fandom.com/wiki/Duffield_Bank_Railway_'Effie'
Had Sir Arthur been able to reach one or other of the nearby main-line stations, the Dove Leys Railway would have been rather like the Eaton Railway, albeit perhaps less grandly ducal in character.
I can think of a couple of other *estate railways* - albeit not quite as Heywood might have designed them - in the Blakesley Miniature Railway (15-inch gauge) and the Sand Hutton Light Railway (18-inch gauge, though it started off as 15-inch gauge).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blakesley_Miniature_Railway
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand_Hutton_Light_Railway
Do any others spring to mind? Note that these two were intended as proper working railways, for freight traffic as well as passengers, and must NOT be confused with pleasure lines designed for seaside day trippers and the like...
As I said, rabbit-holes...
https://www.jonathanclay.co.uk/product/ex-blakesley-hall-railway-bassett-lowke-4-4-2-ic-locomotive-blacolvesley/
Incidentally B-L’s lovely Charles Rennie Macintosh house is one of the few things really worth seeing if you ever find yourself in Northampton.
The other is the art deco Turkish baths (one of about a dozen left in the UK) - which IIRC Mr B-L paid for!
No link so as not to advertise, but should be clear where to look!
I don't know how, or why, they did it, but Hornby managed to attach the revered name of Bassett-Lowke to their unspeakably awful *Steampunk* range of travesties...
(For anyone feeling flush. But it is worth it.)
The volume mentioned by @Sighthound looks to be about right £££-wise, if compared with similar exhaustive works on what is very much a niche interest. I dread to think of how much I paid for W J K Davies' monumental tome on Portuguese narrow-gauge railways a few years ago, but it was a Christmas present to myself...and I don't go out much any more, or have holidays etc. etc.
The modest, and much slimmer, Oakwood Press book by Howard Clayton, which was published in 1968 (and which I think I mentioned earlier) is available on eBay for about £20.
I also recently learned that Spath, which is not far south of Dove Leys, was the site of the first automated level crossing in the UK. The railway it served is long gone - in fact I think it only lasted a few years after the crossing was installed.