Train GraphicClick on the map to explore geographics
 
I need help
FAQ
Emergency
About .
No recent travel & transport from BBC stories as at 06:55 22 Feb 2025
Read about the forum [here].
Register [here] - it's free.
What do I gain from registering? [here]
 27/02/25 - Portsmouth anyone?
03/03/25 - Melksham -> Inverness
06/03/25 - Go-op Crowd Funding closes
06/03/25 - Inverness -> Melksham

On this day
22nd Feb (2011)
GoCo proposal - class 50 Yeovil to Oxford (link)

Train RunningCancelled
06:30 Bristol Temple Meads to London Paddington
07:43 Great Malvern to London Paddington
08:34 Swansea to Carmarthen
14:36 London Paddington to Plymouth
15:18 Bristol Temple Meads to Oxford
17:12 Oxford to Bristol Temple Meads
17:30 London Paddington to Weston-Super-Mare
17:38 Bristol Temple Meads to Worcester Foregate Street
19:50 Worcester Foregate Street to Bristol Temple Meads
20:08 Weston-Super-Mare to Bristol Temple Meads
20:43 Penzance to Plymouth
21:35 Reading to Gatwick Airport
22:16 Bristol Temple Meads to Severn Beach
22:57 Severn Beach to Bristol Temple Meads
23:08 Didcot Parkway to Reading
23:23 Gatwick Airport to Reading
Short Run
07:24 Carmarthen to London Paddington
09:30 Carmarthen to London Paddington
10:38 Bristol Temple Meads to Worcester Foregate Street
12:42 Bristol Temple Meads to Salisbury
12:49 Worcester Foregate Street to Bristol Temple Meads
15:03 London Paddington to Penzance
15:49 Worcester Foregate Street to Bristol Temple Meads
17:10 Weston-Super-Mare to Severn Beach
17:48 London Paddington to Swansea
17:50 Penzance to London Paddington
18:42 Salisbury to Cardiff Central
19:01 Severn Beach to Frome
21:00 Cardiff Central to Exeter St Davids
21:38 London Paddington to Didcot Parkway
21:42 Salisbury to Cardiff Central
22:13 Salisbury to Bristol Temple Meads
22:57 Salisbury to Bristol Temple Meads
Abbreviation pageAcronymns and abbreviations
Stn ComparatorStation Comparator
Rail newsNews Now - live rail news feed
Site Style 1 2 3 4
Next departures • Bristol Temple MeadsBath SpaChippenhamSwindonDidcot ParkwayReadingLondon PaddingtonMelksham
Exeter St DavidsTauntonWestburyTrowbridgeBristol ParkwayCardiff CentralOxfordCheltenham SpaBirmingham New Street
February 22, 2025, 07:03:54 *
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Forgotten your username or password? - get a reminder
Most recently liked subjects
[174] North Cotswold line delays and cancellations - 2025
[84] Brighton's last 1900s tram could return to service in 2025
[79] End of horsedrawn service - Wadworth Brewery, Devizes - Feb 20...
[74] Defibrillators on traiins
[55] SWR cancels - "that will be £10 please to refund" if you want...
[36] St Pancras plans for direct trains from UK to Germany - Feb 20...
 
News: A forum for passengers ... with input from rail professionals welcomed too
 
   Home   Help Search Calendar Login Register  
Pages: [1]
  Print  
Author Topic: OTD 21st February (1967) - Shunting with horses  (Read 2345 times)
grahame
Administrator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 43399



View Profile WWW Email
« on: February 20, 2022, 23:19:34 »

https://booksandmud.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-fall-of-railway-horse_67.html

Quote
There are no horses working in the shunting and goods yards of British railways now: the last one retired in 1967. That horse was the last of a phenomenon that had lasted over 100 years.

The very last railway horses worked at Newmarket Railway Station (a handsome building alas now demolished). The last of them all, Charlie, retired on 21 Feb 1967, after shunting his own horsebox onto the train which was taking him away from Newmarket Station. He went to Clare Hall, Ston Easton, where his working companion, Butch, had already gone.

Charlie achieved some celebrity as the last working railway horse, and British Pathé filmed him a few years before he retired.

Logged

Coffee Shop Admin, Chair of Melksham Rail User Group, TravelWatch SouthWest Board Member
Mark A
Global Moderator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 1845


View Profile
« Reply #1 on: February 21, 2022, 11:15:35 »

Use for shunting aside, was it the Hampton Court branch that for the first months of its existence operated the passenger service using horses for motive power?

Mark
Logged
grahame
Administrator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 43399



View Profile WWW Email
« Reply #2 on: February 21, 2022, 11:30:37 »

Use for shunting aside, was it the Hampton Court branch that for the first months of its existence operated the passenger service using horses for motive power?

Mark

A few passengers services were horse drawn in the past and one (though really a tourist tram) to this day

These first from Wikipedia:

Fintona

The Londonderry and Enniskillen Railway opened the station on 5 June 1853. From 1856, mainline services were withdrawn, and the station was a branch line from Fintona Junction railway station. Most passenger services on this branch line were provided by a horse-drawn tram car.

The short branch to Fintona became famous as the GNR worked it with a horse tram. Since the line's closure, the tram has been preserved at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum at Cultra, County Down.

Port Carlisle

As a cheap alternative a horse-drawn service was provided in 1856 between Drumburgh and Port Carlisle for a number of years. In 1914 steam power was used and to try to avoid closure, a steam railmotor called 'Flower of Yarrow' was built and this service to Port Carlisle railway station lasted until the branch was closed in 1932.

Douglas

The Douglas Bay Horse Tramway on the Isle of Man runs along the seafront promenade for approximately 1.6 miles (2.6 km), from the southern terminus at the Victoria Pier, adjacent to the Isle of Man Sea Terminal, to Derby Castle station, the southern terminus of the Manx Electric Railway, where the workshops and sheds are located. It is a distinctive tourist attraction. However works have been underway to relay all of the track in 2019 and at present only a third (from the Derby Castle) is usable, with no published completion date for the works.

York - from History of York

For the first few months a steam tram was trialled, but soon horses were pulling the trams.  The line was extended through Tower Street, Clifford Street, Ouse Bridge and Micklegate to the Mount by 1882, with a branch along Rougier Street to connect with the new railway station.

Micklegate is a fairly steep incline and an extra horse was needed to pull up the hill.  A horse called Dobbin did the job for many years, waiting at the bottom of the hill until the next tram came along.  He would be hooked up, do his work and then be released to make his own way back down to his position outside the Post Office.
Logged

Coffee Shop Admin, Chair of Melksham Rail User Group, TravelWatch SouthWest Board Member
stuving
Transport Scholar
Hero Member
******
Posts: 7392


View Profile
« Reply #3 on: February 21, 2022, 14:52:09 »

Was there a reason for not going with this (as Wikipedia has it):

"The world's first locomotive-hauled railway journey took place on 21 February 1804, when Trevithick's unnamed steam locomotive hauled a train along the tramway of the Penydarren Ironworks, in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales."

Too obvious?
Logged
grahame
Administrator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 43399



View Profile WWW Email
« Reply #4 on: February 21, 2022, 15:49:41 »

Was there a reason for not going with this (as Wikipedia has it):

"The world's first locomotive-hauled railway journey took place on 21 February 1804, when Trevithick's unnamed steam locomotive hauled a train along the tramway of the Penydarren Ironworks, in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales."

Too obvious?

No reason ... other than that I started putting the OTD data set together with the slightly unusual, then searched on the dates that were missing to see what I could dig out in the more conventional.   Guess Charlie came out tops!

I will add Trevithick to my data set ...
Logged

Coffee Shop Admin, Chair of Melksham Rail User Group, TravelWatch SouthWest Board Member
Oxonhutch
Transport Scholar
Hero Member
******
Posts: 1357



View Profile
« Reply #5 on: February 21, 2022, 16:29:05 »

Douglas

The Douglas Bay Horse Tramway on the Isle of Man runs along the seafront promenade for approximately 1.6 miles (2.6 km), from the southern terminus at the Victoria Pier, adjacent to the Isle of Man Sea Terminal, to Derby Castle station, the southern terminus of the Manx Electric Railway, where the workshops and sheds are located. It is a distinctive tourist attraction. However works have been underway to relay all of the track in 2019 and at present only a third (from the Derby Castle) is usable, with no published completion date for the works.

Before the turn of the millennium, the Douglas tramway had one of the newest extensions to any horse tramway in the world. The tracks seen here carried on to a new tramway terminus by the then new (1965) Sea Terminal building. The seaside wall of that terminus is visible in the distance on the left of the pier in what is now a car parking area.
Logged
Electric train
Transport Scholar
Hero Member
******
Posts: 4511


The future is 25000 Volts AC 750V DC has its place


View Profile
« Reply #6 on: February 21, 2022, 16:48:47 »

Paddington Station had the Mint Stables https://historicengland.org.uk/services-skills/education/educational-images/dray-horses-at-the-mint-stables-paddington-station-westminster-london-3921

Now part of St Mary's Hospital called Mint Wing? They're remnants from the days when the building housed multi storey stables for the horses that worked on the railways at Paddington — up to 600 horses at any one time.

The building remained as stables until the 1950s when it became a research laboratory.

The horses there would have been used for delivery drays but would have also stabled some of the 'shunting horses' used in Paddington Goods
Logged

Starship just experienced what we call a rapid unscheduled disassembly, or a RUD, during ascent,”
Do you have something you would like to add to this thread, or would you like to raise a new question at the Coffee Shop? Please [register] (it is free) if you have not done so before, or login (at the top of this page) if you already have an account - we would love to read what you have to say!

You can find out more about how this forum works [here] - that will link you to a copy of the forum agreement that you can read before you join, and tell you very much more about how we operate. We are an independent forum, provided and run by customers of Great Western Railway, for customers of Great Western Railway and we welcome railway professionals as members too, in either a personal or official capacity. Views expressed in posts are not necessarily the views of the operators of the forum.

As well as posting messages onto existing threads, and starting new subjects, members can communicate with each other through personal messages if they wish. And once members have made a certain number of posts, they will automatically be admitted to the "frequent posters club", where subjects not-for-public-domain are discussed; anything from the occasional rant to meetups we may be having ...

 
Pages: [1]
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by MySQL Powered by PHP Powered by SMF 1.1.2 | SMF © 2006-2007, Simple Machines LLC Valid XHTML 1.0! Valid CSS!
This forum is provided by customers of Great Western Railway (formerly First Great Western), and the views expressed are those of the individual posters concerned. Visit www.gwr.com for the official Great Western Railway website. Please contact the administrators of this site if you feel that the content provided by one of our posters contravenes our posting rules via admin@railcustomer.info. Full legal statement (here).

Jump to top of pageJump to Forum Home Page