Sydenham Town Forum

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3233/2450258084_005d2e0378_o.jpg Looking at Multimap I noticed this! This could line up with the excavation ' on the northern edge of the cricket pitch' that Steve mentioned earlier. Im not sure it is the miniature railway either as the alignment at the bottom end is ...

I think there was only one engine house at the Sydenham end. There is almost nothing describing the Penge end 'station'. We dont even no if the line exited the tunnel at Penge either. The station(s) had a gradient built in so the coach rolled off on its own (presummably they had a brake?) towards ...

A standard gauge coach that size could weigh up to ten tons or more. I doubt if a pressure of 2.5 ounces per SI could derail it. I notice that the bristle brush is slightly outward of the axle. So the brush would of overhang a bit on the curves, but not by much as the radius was 500+ feet. Difficult ...

Great Article, thanks Steve.

My spellings terrible. Must slow down.

Hi Just a point of information - from these posts there are 2 seperate articles - on the railway - the ILN and the new york times? - both with measurements. Yes I should of said. The NYT article dates from 1869 presumably after the railway was long long. This could account for error in length ...

I can remember in the early seventies an article in the News Shopper saying that there was to be an excavation adjacent to the adventure playgroung to hopefully discover the pneumatic railway. I attended this dig together with a few dignitaries and authors. Two or three trenches were dug crossing a ...

I remember an old family friend saying the route was under where the adventure playground was.... just a thought. Hi Will, Where was the adventure palyground? Some very good theories here. On the face of it they look plausable. I have a few gripes though! The 'building' at the bottom end of the ...

neilgunn wrote:
And this one is where the docklands light railway dives down under the thames towards woolwich. This was consructed fairly recently.

Sorry I meant towards Greenwich. Well I was Up late so thats my excuse!!

Your photo is interesting. Ive seen the miniature railway marked out on a map and read references to it. Im amazed how visible these marks are from ground level. Nothing from the air, this could be due to the height of the sun (no shadows) when the aerial image was taken. The 'straight line' is ...

Ive just found this article on the net. It a New York times article describing the line at the time. I searched for atmospheric instead of pneumatic. It goes into great detail and mentions a 'pipe' that was connected to the tunnel!! It sounds like the one on the map! http://farm4.static.flickr.com ...

Thats a nice set of clear pictures, the second one ive not seen before. Looking at the line in the grass again,judging by the cars it looks to be about 10 - 15ft in width and 350ft long. I that is only a 'pipe' than how can this be so wide? And its visible 140 years later! Could it be a site of a ...

Steve Grindlay wrote:I have now encircled the embankment I was referring to.

The formation that is circled looks like some sort of quarry excavation to me. As the ground rises it gets deeper. Looking at the direction of the lines I dont see how that is an embankment.

Hi, Steve Ive had a look at your maps. I cant see the embankment though. What I can see is something marked 'pipe' that first appears on the 1864 map. This is on the same alignment and length as the mark in the grass! And there is an engine house at the bottom end and something called a suction ...

does a pneumatic railway have to run "on rails"? if it was only a short distance then maybe they just used regular wheels? i've no idea, obviously, but it's just a different thought. Using metal wheel to rail technology would be the most logical as it has the least resistance compared to rubber ...

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2381/2410888515_828015bcf0_o.jpg Whilst looking at google earth I found this. Ive highlighted it with two red lines. Between them it looks like a straight line. This could mean that there is a shallow tunnel here or something else in the past. Looking at a 1874 map on ...