Canals and Railways

One of the most common model railway cliches, for understandable reasons, is the interchange between a railway and a canal, or between two gauges of railway. Of course, there are many prototypical examples of these kinds of interchange. One of the more interesting, and well known is at Bude.

It is quite a complex story. The Bude Canal opened in 1823. Connected to the sea by a lock, it provided access to two safe basins for small trading ships, but it also provided a way of taking sand from the beaches into the countryside for use in improving the soil. Whilst the sea lock might appear conventional, other changes in level were addressed by inclined planes. And to use the inclined planes the tub boats were equipped with their own wheels to run in U shaped rails.

There was also a 4ft gauge plateway, running from the beach to the wharves, to deliver the sand into the tub boats. In 1923 this was replaced by a 2ft gauge tramway that remained horsedrawn until it closed in 1942.

When the LSWR reached Bude in 1898 they built the terminus on the outskirts of the town, but a single-track branch was laid that reached the wharves. 

One thing I haven't been able to work out, either from maps or old photos, is whether there was an interchange between the standard gauge and the tramway(s)

UPDATE I think this photo from Britain from Above shows there were definite steps in place to PREVENT a direct interchange. 

Today the canal is only navigable for a relatively short section - I went paddleboarding on it, remains of the 2ft gauge can still be seen on the slope down to the beach, but plans are in progress to cover them over to prevent further corrosion and reduce the tripping risk. Storms not so long ago revealed that the track is still in place under the sand on the beach itself. The site of the LSWR station is now a housing estate, but you can still follow the route of the branch to the canal. The Castle Museum also have a fair few relics of the station 

The infamous Bude Tunnel.
The most popular tourist attraction in Bude according to Trip Advisor

Somewhere around here is the buried track on the beach

The tramway ran over this bridge

The old lifeboat station, somewhat inconveniently sited on the canal!
The footpath is the route of the LSWR 

Looking the other way, with a delightfully corrugated building on the other side of the basin

Lynton & Barnstaple

Odd childhood memories stick with you. One of mine is walking down to Selly Oak Library with my mother and brother to pick up new books, and finding an album on the Lynton & Barnstaple.

At that time I really only knew about the Welsh narrow gauge. Here was a revelation. Seemingly massive locos running through what seemed an exotic landscape, with hints of the wild west.

Alas, it was long gone, and Devon was a long way away when your family never went on holidays and only took Sunday afternoons off.

Fast forward another 10 or so years and I did make it to Lynton, but we were on a tight schedule on a day trip from Southampton that also included the West Somerset.

So somehow it has taken until last week for me to finally make it to Woody Bay, and as we now know it really was only sleeping...

Confession time. I made the mistake of relying on my old Sony compact superzoom camera. It is really time I binned it. The superzoom can get shots I would struggle to by any other means but the images it produces are incredibly soft and blurry, even at the less extreme end of the zoom. Most of these photos have only been saved by the use of Topaz Sharpen AI.