Talk:Wagonway

Iron rails

When I found the article, it said that L-shaped rails had been cast at Coalbrookdale in 1767. This is certainly incorrect, though such a rail survives in situ at Coalbrookdale. I have corrected this, but the article is at present confused as to the adoption of various rail systems. This needs to be sorted out. Peterkingiron (talk) 11:52, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Which is which?

Flangeways (flange on rails) tend to get obstructed by loose stones, although the vehicles that run on them can run on ordinary roads.

Edgeways (flange on wheels) avoid the stone obstruction problem, but the flanges on the wheels tend to make those wheels unsuitable for ordinary roads.

Modern railways are Edgeways.

Stone blocks had an advantage over timber sleepers in that they left the middle of the track unhindered for the hooves of horses.

Timber sleepers had an advantage over stone blocks in that they maintained the gauge more accurately.

Tabletop (talk) 04:14, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Guessing which is which!

Difference between edge wheel/rail and flange wheel/rail is small, and if you guess, there is 50% of getting it right (and 50% of getting it wrong). This is confusing to put it mildly, and begs incorrect answers. The solution, it is suggested, is to repeat the right phrasiology again and again until the correct answer is drummed in.

Tabletop (talk) 04:34, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Gauge

Is there any information about the gauge of these early wagonways, and how is the gauge measured with edgeways and flangeways? Tabletop (talk) 04:43, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Precious little, actually. It is important to remember that, although nowadays we think of the track gauge as being the primary measurement when designign a railway, in those days it ws the other way round. You had a large fleet of road wagons, and some inventor suggested laying a plateway to run them on; so you would measure the "gauge" of teh wagon wheels, hoping bthey were consistent, and build your track to suit that.

People are fond of pointing out that the ruts in the roadways at Pompeii from pre AD79 are supposedly 4ft 8.5 in apart. I don't think that George STephenson and his pals went to Italy to get ideas when they were designing the Stockton & Darlington, somehow. --Afterbrunel (talk) 09:02, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Flangeway

• Is this a valid term for L-shaped rails? In modern parlance the flangeway is the space next to the rail as it goes over a crossing which allows clearance for the wheel flanges. I can't find references to any other definition.
• The wheels that run on them may not have flanges, but would not be able to run on ordinary roads; the cast-iron rims are far too narrow and would plough up any normal road surface.
• The term "Tramroad" is commonly used for early railways but barely crops up in Wikipedia. Is there scope for a separate article here? . . Rcawsey (talk) 12:01, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

The prevalence of the edge-railed railway has meant that we have lost the language to talk about early railways. Early industrial archaeologists therefore coined terms to describe them, when they first discovered them. Another problem is concerns differnet terminology in different parts of Britain. In the northeast they were wagonways. In the Midlands they were railways. I recall a discussion between two people, one of whom called a small truck for bring material out a mine a tram (or dram), while the other had a different term from his own region. A further problem is that a tram usually means a vehicle like a bus, but running on rails. There is another article Plateway, which I was thinking of suggesting for merger here. I do not think it helps to have multiple articles on similar subjects, because they are liable to overlap and even to contradict each other. It is possible that we need sub-articles on particular aspects of early rail transport, but any Tramroad article should only exist as a redirect to here. The same applies to Flangeway (currenly a redlink). The present article is not excessively long, and can be satisfacotily expanded to deal with all the subjects discussed here. Peterkingiron (talk) 12:32, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Merge Proposal

The article Plateway is a poor stub and wholly unreferenced. It covers the same ground as a section of this article. However this article is not of a size for it to be necessary for detail to be forked off. NOTE: I have also delinked the former redlinks to "edgeway" "edgerail" and "flangeway". If these articles were to be created at all, they were merely be redirects to here or History of rail transport. We do not need duplicate articles covering the same subject. Peterkingiron (talk) 23:50, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes please merge it, the whole topic of "rail tracks" is in need of a tidy. - with info being duplicated over multiple pages in some cases.

I might suggest giving a new title such as "early railways" or something else you can think of that is better. I'm just about to start tidying rail track and related articles - if would be good if there was a good overview article of pre-locomotive that could be linked to from that article.FengRail (talk) 19:40, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

I think this article is probably the best place for the "early railways" that you suggest. Peterkingiron (talk) 21:53, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I fully support the idea for a merge. There is also a lot of early development material on the Rail Tracks and Permanent Way pages, which ought not really to be there.

Inevitably the article would be mainly about the technology of the permanent way -- the discussion about horses versus mules, and wagon types, is going to be rather thin. The danger with entitling it "early railways" is that people will expect a discussion of the promoters' meetings of the Stockton & Darlington Rly (say) rather than a technology idscussion. --Afterbrunel (talk) 09:05, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, that comment is rather unclear. I have now merged the "Plateway" article into this article and a part of it into "Permanent way: historical development". There is a lot of good material here (in "Wagonways") but it duplicates the subject matter of "Permanent way: historical development" and I propose to move the technical discussion from here into that page, which would then become a superb (if rather long) article.

There is still a need for this "Wagonways" page, but it should be confined to an enhanced explanation of the commercial pressures (heavy ores to navigable rivers, etc etc) and the traction and operational methods, with just a very brief overview of L-shaped plates and edge rails. If no-one objects I will start that work in a couple of weeks time.

There are still a lot of gaps here, in "Wagonways"; the reference to individual wagonways looks rather selective, and some kind of perspective is needed; and it is rather UK-centred; if anyone can help with North American practice and European, that would be hugely helpful.

--Afterbrunel (talk) 20:02, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose merger -- Please do not be too hasty. When the motive power was the horse, there is little to write about except the permanent way, It ought to be appropriate to have an article on the wagonway to cover pre-mainline edge-railways and plateway to deal (mainly) with iron railways where the flange was on the rail, rather than the wheel. Peterkingiron (talk) 18:49, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Recent edits

I suspect that recent edits have intriduced a contradiction: I thought Outram was a proponent of the L-shaped rails of the flangeway, not of edge rails. I suspect that this article needs to be pruned of material that really refers to the origins of railways. This is apart from the fact that the Wollaton wagonway was probably not the first, but the first to be docemnted: publication on this is awaited. Peterkingiron (talk) 17:31, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

That is correct, or at least it is received wisdom. I'd have to check the dates but I believe Outram continued to build flangeways after Jessop built edge ways. Would a suitable marker point for the start of railway tracks vs wagonways be the introduction of fish bellied rails? Chevin (talk) 08:24, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Earliest use of spellings: "Wagon-way" and "Waggon-way"

The Oxford English Dictionary lists both, but states that the spelling wagon-way is the oldest(1727), the reference being to an artificial road called a wagon-way used for taking coal by horse drawn coal wagon from a colliery down to the nearest river. It lists the first verified use of the spelling waggon-way to 1837: "The intended rail-road, or 'waggon-way', as it was termed". It also mentions an (attributed) 1764 reference:"If the waggon-way-rails...be wet sometimes, a man cannot stop the waggon". The word wagon is likely to be from the Dutch/German wagen. 28 September 2009.

The problem arises from a coflict between OED and probably Websters. Since the subject matter is largely British, perhpas the OED is preferable, but dsiputes over US/UK spelling are a source of conflict in WP that is not really worth the trouble. Peterkingiron (talk) 15:49, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Conversions

2 in (51 mm), 3 in (76 mm), 3.75 in (95 mm) and 4 in (102 mm). Peter Horn User talk 21:02, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

6 ft (1,829 mm), 6 ft (1,800 mm). Peter Horn User talk 21:33, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

The nearest 1 mm would have been OK. 2 in (51 mm), 3 in (76 mm), 3.75 in (95 mm) and 4 in (100 mm) Peter Horn User talk 21:24, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Some possibilities:

• 2 in (51 mm)
• 3 in (76 mm)
• 3+3⁄4 in (95 mm) (fractions!)
• 4 in (102 mm)
• 3 ft (914 mm)

• 3 ft (910 mm)
• 3 ft (914 mm)
• 6 ft (1,829 mm)
• 6 ft (1,800 mm)
• 6 ft (1,829 mm)

If you would like templates that give conversions to the nearest 5 mm you could place a request on Template talk:Convert. I am sure that some whiz will figure out how to do that. Any way, to what tolerance, or allowance, were they able to work? Peter Horn User talk 23:29, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

"No horse- or cable- hauled freight railway exists today"

I've marked this claim as dubious, as there are a few remote narrow gauge mining railways in both categories. I'll try to find examples. Railfan23 (talk) 20:00, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Update: I've found two examples, which I've added to the article. I am sure there are others. Railfan23 (talk) 21:30, 25 September 2018 (UTC)