bourne hall

Ho British Tramway

Description    Staring with the Wantage Tramway in 1875 and finishing the Wolverton & Stony Stratford Tramway of 1887 steam tramways were built in an effort to improve transport in rural areas that could not afford a branch line. Only a few were built and there failure to develop lead to the 1896 light railway. The line was originally built to connect the mines and quarries in the Hogsmill Valley to the quay at Barebones, named after a local public house. The late 1870’s saw the lines legal position regularised under the Tramway Act and it’s extension to a new and larger terminus at Bourne Hall and to a junction with the mainline. The extensions proved a mistake with considerable capital expenditure for very little reward. This lead to financially embarrassed company to operate the tramway with mostly mixed trains worked by a ragbag of stock and wagons purloined from the mainline companies. The layout is set in the tramway’s final decade with a failing rural tramway swings between wood and meadow in the glorious summer sunshine. The emphasis is on scenery including with the Old Line using a simple track plan to give the feel of railway in the scenery.