Lakeside Miniature Railway
Resource Type: Image | Posted on 11th November 2011 by Liam Physick
Here, in Fifteen Inches Between the Tracks, we see the King George V locomotive pull a train on the Lakeside Miniature Railway in Southport. The line opened on 25th May 1911. It runs alongside the Marine Lake on the sea front at Southport, and was originally called Llewellyn’s Miniature Railway, after G V Llewellyn, its builder and original operator. It is the oldest continuously running minimum-gauge railway in the world: as we have seen, the Ravenglass and Eskdale was closed from 1913 to 1915-17 and until its reopening was not minimum gauge, while the Rhyl Miniature Railway, which opened on 1st May 1911, was closed during the Second World War, unlike the Lakeside. The locomotive seen here, the King George V, was one of the two original locomotives on the Railway, along with the Princess Elizabeth: both were Bassett-Lowke Class 10 “Atlantic” 4-4-2 engines. As Southport became a more popular tourist destination, the two engines were rebuilt as Class 30s. They have since been superseded by diesel locomotives (some of which are built to resemble steam engines but in fact use diesel power) and are now privately owneed in the United States
Categorised under: Landmarks, Landscapes & Locomotives
Comments
I have this old postcard of Llewellyn Railway. Can you provide an approximate date? (date listed is a guess)
https://goo.gl/photos/yGMe44qaU8VZ87hY9