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Calthrop

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Malmesbury, due to powers being revoked?

Malmesbury branch, which initially ran northward from Dauntsey on the original GWR London -- Bristol main line; a good few decades later, the new cut-off line Wootton Bassett -- Patchway (shortening the route to South Wales) intersected the branch mid-way, at Great / Little Somerford: the junction for Malmesbury was changed to Little Somerford, roughly halving the length of the branch.
 

Snow1964

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Malmesbury branch, which initially ran northward from Dauntsey on the original GWR London -- Bristol main line; a good few decades later, the new cut-off line Wootton Bassett -- Patchway (shortening the route to South Wales) intersected the branch mid-way, at Great / Little Somerford: the junction for Malmesbury was changed to Little Somerford, roughly halving the length of the branch.

Yes correct, although the spur to Little Somerford wasn’t built until 1930s, even though cut off line opened in 1903
 

Gloster

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The bodies were narrower (8”, i think) as they were built to go through the tunnels on the Tonbridge-Hastings line, which were to a restricted clearance. This also meant some internal alterations.
 

Gloster

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I presume that it is my turn to set a question.

Within the present century there has been a standard gauge (4’ 8 1/2”) commercial line in the Republic of Ireland. Where?
 

Gloster

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I will clarify that I meant a railway, not a tramway, though I should have been more explicit. So a ‘sort of’ point.
 

Snow1964

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I think Dublin (Westland Row) - Dun Laoghaire (then using the British name of Kingstown) was initially standard gauge, before becoming Irish gauge in 1848 when line was extended.

But that isn’t present century, and can’t think of any lines in last 20 years
 
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Gloster

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Bord na mona?
No, not that.
I think Dublin (Westland Row) - Dun Laoghaire (then using the British name of Kingstown) was initially standard gauge, before becoming Irish gauge in 1848 when line was extended.

But that isn’t present century, and can’t think of any lines in last 20 years
You are, if I remember correctly (I wasn’t around then), correct. However, that is not the answer to the question. I do mean the present century.
 

Gloster

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To provide a clue: the line was not really long enough to be a railway and was on an island, and I don’t mean ‘the island of Ireland’.
 

Gloster

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Then we need a clue please. Or might lateral thinking help?
Why there was a slight mistake at the beginning was that I was carefully in saying, line, not railway. I think that the rolling-stock was US-style gondolas, possibly secondhand.

I will give the answer later as, if I haven’t prodded the answer out of the back of people’s minds by now, there is not much more that I can do to bring the memory up.
 

Gloster

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Some sort of fun railway along the beach, at Dun Laoghaire maybe?
No, I am afraid not.

I suspect that nobody is going to get the answer. There was a short
line on Haulbowline Island in Cork Harbour (off Cobh) for the the movement of scrap (from, I think, the dockside) to Irish Steel’s works there. There were two or three Uniloks, but the line closed in 2001 or 2002.

As I have no other questions, it is Open Forum unless CarrotPie has another question.
 

DerekC

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What did the LSWR and Frank Prentice do on the Hampton Court branch in 1911? Although a failure at the time it was the precursor of a revolution that is still ongoing today.
 

DerekC

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Not regenerative braking. Perhaps I should be more careful with the words. The technology had recently been invented and was based on a discovery in physics made about forty years earlier.
 

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