At 19:59 22/10/99 +0100, Martin Potts wrote:
>Dear Bernard (and others)
>
>Indeed, rails and railways have been used in mines for hundreds of years.
>However, I cannot recall any being Brunel's broad gauge (or similar), for
>the very practical reason that such a line would require a particularly
>large and expensive excavation to give access, with little in the way of
>compensation. There were one or two standard gauge mine underground mine
>systems - the ammo dumps in the Bath Stone mines being the only one I can
>immediately remember, but I know of none used for production.
If you're talking about the stone mine by Box Tunnel, the standard gauge
railway (which was broad gauge pre 1875) ran only to an underground loading
bank. The actually mine system was served by narrow gauge lines - mostly 2
ft 6 ins gauge I think - and presumably the same applied after the
government took over (except that the internal lines were 2 foot).
Richard Kelham
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|