Vintage trains

I think we're doing a Christmas trip. Hopefully there'll be some snow for the pictrues

The Wemyss Bay railway station serves the village of Wemyss Bay, Inverclyde, Scotland. The station is a terminus on the Inverclyde Line, about 26 miles west of Glasgow Central. The station incorporates the Caledonian MacBrayne ferry terminal connecting mainland Scotland to Rothesay on the Isle of Bute.

Work began in late 1862 on the single track Greenock and Wemyss Bay Railway branching from the main Glasgow, Paisley and Greenock Railway at Port Glasgow and taking an inland route across to the coast at Inverkip before descending to Wemyss Bay. This was to connect to Clyde steamer services for Rothesay, Largs and Millport, Isle of Cumbrae, allowing a combined train and steamer journey time of an hour and a half, compared with a typical time of three hours by steamer from Glasgow. The Wemyss Bay Steamboat Company was formed to own the connecting steamers, competing with the private owners of other Clyde steamer services. The route opened on 15 May 1865,

The station was designed by James Miller in 1903 for the Caledonian Railway and is remarkable in its use of glass and steel curves. The station is noted for its architectural qualities and, although one of Scotland's finest railway buildings and Category A listed, it had suffered from neglect. But a major refurbishment scheme carried out jointly by Network Rail, Inverclyde Council and the Scottish Government from June 2014 to the spring of 2016 has seen the station buildings and adjacent ferry terminal fully restored, how magnificent the station looks today.

That's a lovely item about Wemyss Bay Railway Station, it is good to see that care has been taken to renovate the station, so many are now a shadow how they used to be. Amazing really, as it only really a commuter line from Glasgow. (I wonder what the Dark Red Diesel hauled train was, it must have been some type of special charter train.)

There is, at the moment, a TV series running on channel 18, sorry I can't remember the TV company's name. It's all about the beautiful railways of Scotland, whether that be former railways, or those still in use. Wemyss is unique in it's shape and was designed to facilitate the flow of passengers from train to ferry. Wiki has some details, not nearly as in formative as the TV channel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wemyss_Bay_railway_station Or there's friends of Wemyss, which tells you of the history of this magnificent structure. It also gives you an insight to the entire line and it's stations. https://friendsofwemyssbaystation.co.uk/ If you want to see more just go to Youtube.

I'm new here. Are trolleys allowed in the trains thread? I am a volunteer trolley operator at the Shore Line Trolley Museum in East Haven, Connecticut. I am on the right in the photo below. I try to dress the part, with a jacket, etc., but when it's hot, we're down to shirtsleeves and a vest if we can stand it. The trolley in the photo is car 850 from New Orleans, built in 1922 by the Perley-Thomas Company (now building Thomas school buses) and operated in New Orleans until 1964, at which time it came to the museum. It's not the fastest or fanciest of our cars, but is one of my favorites.



We have approximately 100 vehicles in the museum's collection. I can post more if there is interest.

Rails run in the family: my great-grandfather worked for the New Haven Railroad, beginning in 1900. He became a fireman in 1902 and an engineer in 1907, so he would have been on the line when the switchover from steam to electric occurred going into Grand Central. His father was an engineer for the New Haven as well.

⇧ Welcome. That's a beautiful trolley. Neat family history too.

Farace said:

I'm new here. Are trolleys allowed in the trains thread? I am a volunteer trolley operator at the Shore Line Trolley Museum in East Haven, Connecticut. I am on the right in the photo below. I try to dress the part, with a jacket, etc., but when it's hot, we're down to shirtsleeves and a vest if we can stand it. The trolley in the photo is car 850 from New Orleans, built in 1922 by the Perley-Thomas Company (now building Thomas school buses) and operated in New Orleans until 1964, at which time it came to the museum. It's not the fastest or fanciest of our cars, but is one of my favorites.

View attachment 187104

We have approximately 100 vehicles in the museum's collection. I can post more if there is interest.

Rails run in the family: my great-grandfather worked for the New Haven Railroad, beginning in 1900. He became a fireman in 1902 and an engineer in 1907, so he would have been on the line when the switchover from steam to electric occurred going into Grand Central. His father was an engineer for the New Haven as well.

Click to expand...

A Streetcar Named Desire, it doesn't get much better.
In the UK, that street car would be known as a tram. Like this:


Whereas Britspeak for a trolley is an electric road bus taking it's power from overhead cables.
The tram/trolley has been making a return to our roads, but one community has never scrapped them, see here: Blackpool Trams.

GHT said:

A Streetcar Named Desire, it doesn't get much better.
In the UK, that street car would be known as a tram. Like this:
View attachment 342351
View attachment 342352
Whereas Britspeak for a trolley is an electric road bus taking it's power from overhead cables.
The tram/trolley has been making a return to our roads, but one community has never scrapped them, see here: Blackpool Trams.

Click to expand...

Really, in the UK, what is known in the USA as a Street Car, it is known here as Tram/Tramcar, it runs on two rails, with a single electric power pick up, usually from an overhead cable, (Some of the very early trams, did used to pick up from a 3rd rail underneath.) The other electric passenger vehicle here was called a Trolley Bus as shown in the bottom photo, it did not need to run on rails and collected the power from Two overhead lines. Sometimes, when trying turn a tight corner or roundabout or overtaking, the power pole would come of the wire and the conductor and driver had to take a long stick from underneath the vehicle to put the pole back on the cable.