Section of "Brunel Rail" near Dawlish

[davetheguard]

On a quiet, narrow, country lane a few miles inland from Dawlish is a nursery business on the Ashcombe Road. It is private and not open to the public, but visible from the lane & in use as a section of fence are some lengths of metal which are claimed to be "I K Brunel rail from Starcross 1847".

The "rail", if that is what it is, is hollow and seems to have a very wide top to it; not like a section of modern rail in profile at all - there is no web.

Anyone know anything about this? Anyone from Didcot Railway Centre who can confirm it's similarity to the broad gauge track there?

Pictures attached.

 

[341o2]

Starcross was one of the pumping stations on his atmospheric railway. A length of rail salvaged from this?

 

[Ploughman]

The rail does appear to be typical of the GW broad guge.

 

[furnessvale]

These are "bridge" rails. A section commonly used in the past anywhere that utilised longitudinal timbers instead of sleepers.

Given where they are, and the fact that broad gauge used longitudinal timbers, it is highly likely, but not definitive, that they are from Brunel's broad gauge.

 

[edwin_m]

Pieces of bridge rail were used for various purposes on the GWR such as posts for trespass signs, and can be seen even today.

 

[furnessvale]

Pieces of bridge rail were used for various purposes on the GWR such as posts for trespass signs, and can be seen even today.

True. Also true of bullhead and flatbottom section rail. However, certainly in my day, the use of rail was confined to that which had ended its useful life and was destined for scrap

Presumably, having adopted a proper rail gauge, the GWR had many miles of bridge rail available for other uses!

 

[181]

Pieces of bridge rail were used for various purposes on the GWR such as posts for trespass signs, and can be seen even today.

I'd guess that the example most often seen (as opposed to noticed) by the public is (as I or someone else may have mentioned before) the railings round the end of platforms 11 and 12 at Paddington, which are partly made out of such rails -- just visible at lower left here.

 

[CarltonA]

I have been referring to that type of rail as "Barlow Rail", perhaps wrongly. I think the GWR had huge amounts of the stuff spare after converting the broad gauge and were using it for fence posts and sign supports when they constructed the line from Northolt Junction to High Wycombe in about 1905 and possibly on the now GlosWarks route which was built at about the same time.

 

[davetheguard]

It was mainly the fact that the rail was hollow and not a solid piece of metal, that made me wonder if it was really what it was claimed to be. I guess trains were a lot lighter then, and they were making up the technology as they went along.

I must have a look at those railings at Paddington refered to by 181, once travel is allowed again.

Thanks to everyone for their replies.

 

[edwin_m]

It was mainly the fact that the rail was hollow and not a solid piece of metal, that made me wonder if it was really what it was claimed to be. I guess trains were a lot lighter then, and they were making up the technology as they went along.

This type of rail was fixed to continuous longitudinal timbers (baulks) as shown by the bolt holes. So it didn't have to withstand the stresses that normal rail experiences when supporting the weight on a wheel midway between sleepers.

I believe a lot of this type of track was replaced before broad to standard gauge conversion by conventional bullhead rail laid to the wider gauge, on longer but otherwise conventional cross-sleepers. Final conversion was then just a matter of re-positioning one rail and chairs on the sleepers. I don't know if any bridge rail was used before or after 1892 on standard gauge sections - perhaps on (former) mixed gauge?

 

[pdeaves]

It was mainly the fact that the rail was hollow and not a solid piece of metal, that made me wonder if it was really what it was claimed to be. I guess trains were a lot lighter then, and they were making up the technology as they went along.

With proper support a hollow arch is inherently very strong (as evinced by many bridge structures).

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

Quite a lot of 'baulk road' track remained in Devon and Cornwall, and was converted to 'narrow gauge' in that memorable May 1892 weekend, before being finally replaced by the Edwardian era. Here is a well-known shot of the conversion near Wearde in Cornwall in progress - this section of line was actually abandoned in 1908 by a new alignment to replace the timber viaducts.
https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/782d823d-ac56-5fff-e040-e00a180605a8

 

[Cowley]

Quite a lot of 'baulk road' track remained in Devon and Cornwall, and was converted to 'narrow gauge' in that memorable May 1892 weekend, before being finally replaced by the Edwardian era. Here is a well-known shot of the conversion near Wearde in Cornwall in progress - this section of line was actually abandoned in 1908 by a new alignment to replace the timber viaducts.
https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/782d823d-ac56-5fff-e040-e00a180605a8

I guess there must have been a lot of spare rail around after that day in 1892, especially from places like Plymouth and Exeter where it was already mixed gauge?

 

[DelW]

I believe a lot of this type of track was replaced before broad to standard gauge conversion by conventional bullhead rail laid to the wider gauge, on longer but otherwise conventional cross-sleepers. Final conversion was then just a matter of re-positioning one rail and chairs on the sleepers.

I'm sure I've seen a photo taken shortly before gauge conversion, showing tracks relaid on the long transverse sleepers you mentioned. The sleepers already had three chairs fixed to them, one common to both gauges, one ready for standard gauge, and one for broad gauge. So it would "just" have needed the keys knocking out, one rail moving over, and keys replacing. Still a massive job when done over many miles of main line though.
I suspect that most of the bridge rail reused as fence posts, railings, sign mounts and the like must have been insitu at least since 1892, much longer than they were used as rails. Not a bad bit of recycling.

 

[edwin_m]

Quite a lot of 'baulk road' track remained in Devon and Cornwall, and was converted to 'narrow gauge' in that memorable May 1892 weekend, before being finally replaced by the Edwardian era. Here is a well-known shot of the conversion near Wearde in Cornwall in progress - this section of line was actually abandoned in 1908 by a new alignment to replace the timber viaducts.
https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/782d823d-ac56-5fff-e040-e00a180605a8

Yes you're right, I've seen a version of that elsewhere but had forgotten about it. I think it was in a forum discussion about how they had previously cut down the crossties and used some metal strips to maintain the gauge, before removing this and pushing the rail and its baulk back to the end of the shorter crossties as shown here. I think the baulk also sat on vertical piles, so they probably pre-buried a second set of those too.

 

[Midnight Sun]

Yes you're right, I've seen a version of that elsewhere but had forgotten about it. I think it was in a forum discussion about how they had previously cut down the crossties and used some metal strips to maintain the gauge, before removing this and pushing the rail and its baulk back to the end of the shorter crossties as shown here. I think the baulk also sat on vertical piles, so they probably pre-buried a second set of those too.

The section of track between London and Taplow did have vertical piles fixed to the longitudinal baulks at first, But were quickly cut away when it was found that the track was forced upwards between the piles due to tightly packed ballast and thus gave an undulating ride.

 

[181]

I have been referring to that type of rail as "Barlow Rail", perhaps wrongly.

Barlow rail appears to have been similar but not identical, less successful, and also often used for other purposes once no longer required for running trains on. (Wikipedia claims that it was initially used without anything other than ballast to maintain the gauge, but this seems hard to believe, and isn't backed up by a citation).

Here is the Wikipedia page on Brunel's track.

 

[Jon Pegler]

Barlow rail was fairly obsolete by 1850, unlike bridge rail, which was not used much on the main lines after 1892 and the gauge conversion, but was used in many sidings until at least the 1930s.
Subsequently, many signs were fixed to bridge rail posts.
Barlow rail was also used for signposts and platform supports.
There is still an old gatepost made from two sections of Barlow rail, back to back, at the old West Ealing milk yard exit.
Hanwell station had the up relief platform supported by Barlow rail for many years, presumably from when built in the 1870s.