Description

The original patented design of the railway was for a single track with two cars, with a crossing point mid-way between top and bottom, but this was abandoned in favour of a double track. When finished, the track measured 201 ft long, with a vertical rise of 111ft. This gave the railway an incline of 1:81, or 33.52°, the steepest in inland Britain.

The rails were secured to sleepers which were themselves bolted into solid rock. At the upper end of the track, the hauling pulley was built on solid concrete foundations, the supporting buttresses of which carried a considerable distance down the track. Flat bottomed rails were used and the entire line was ballasted with concrete to avoid any slippage. Horizontal rollers were set into the track at regular intervals to support the steel ropes.

Each car was mounted on a triangular frame of steel girders which housed a 2,000 gallon water tank. The method of power was simple – the tank on the car at the top was filled with water from a 30,000 gallon tank mounted on the roof of the top station. When the tank was full, the total weight of the car was more than 9 tons, easily enough to counterbalance the bottom car with its 18 passengers.

Details