Great Western Coffee Shop

Single vehicle passenger trains from .... well - can you place the countries?

1.
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/wmad01a.jpg)

2.
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/wmad02a.jpg)

3.
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/wmad03a.jpg)

4.
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/wmad04a.jpg)

5.
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/wmad05a.jpg)

6.
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/wmad06a.jpg)

7.
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/wmad07a.jpg)

No. 2 is a genuine Micheline - indeed the original one - from France in the 1930s. They had a brief burst of popularity, in various shapes and sizes, before the disadvantages proved too hard to overcome.

Number 3 - Tralee & Dingwall Railway.  Lost, and long-lamented

7 Germany.

4. Budd railcar for the Baltimore & Ohio. US

A railway running from Tralee to Dingwall would be very impressive!  ;)

I think you might mean Tralee and Dingle.

Number 7 Morecambe, when the line to Lancaster was electrified using 6.6Kv OHLE

This is a strange bunch I have put together.

1 -
2 - France (I didn't actually know this one, but I'm sure you're right
3 - Ireland though NOT on the Tralee and Dingle. In the final years of narrow gauge lines in Ireland, newer stock tended to be move on from one line to another as they closed or demand changed, and it's quite possible that this railcar ran for a time out of Tralee, or even originated on that line.
4 - USA
5 -
6 -
7 - Not Germany; not UK either

Halfway down this page about (irrelevantly) Cambrdge on disused stations (http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/c/cambridge/index6.shtml), there's a quite detailed section on some Michelines visiting Britain, and similar railcars being made here.

I would take a punt at Argentina for number 1, given the colour scheme and the thing for stopping moo-cows going under.
Number 5 - Lausanne, Switzerland?

3 = County Donegal

A bit further east, maybe?

Having been intrigued by no 1. I spent a few moments on Google, from which I think it is Madagascar

Guess what? Another Micheline! Also linked to no.4, as made by Carel et Fouch? who licensed Budd's manufacturing process, and were later taken over by them and churned out all those stainless steel carriages for TEEs and the SNCF EMUs - some of which may still just about be in service.

In 1961, the Isle of Man Railway purchased two railcars from the County Donegal Railways and they became IMR numbers 19 and 20 in their fleet. No. 3 looks like one of those vehicles but the location of the photograph is not the Isle of Man. We shunned them in the early '60s on the now long closed Peel line as they were 'dirty diesels' as as opposed to our beloved Manx Peacocks - one of whom shares our family name. The railcars have quite a cult following and I now regret not having had the experience of travelling in them. The driving cab - motor car part was built in Wigan - the carriage articulated bogie in Ireland.

I have seen No. 2 photo before and I believe it is on trial somewhere around Oxford but I haven't yet found my correct book.

I was updating while you wrote ....

1 - Madagascar
2 - France
3 - Ireland (Country Donegal)
4 - USA
5 - Switzerland (Lausanne)
6 - No guesses yet Stop press - not Oxford
7 - Not Germany; not UK either

The Ireland picture is Killybegs - 99.9% sure.  Pity they gave no more than a stay of execution to the Peel and Ramsey lines on the Isle of Man which remains a railway Mecca in spite of those losses.

Are we sure 2 is France? It has English writing on the side (with American spellings).

No, well, I am not sure.  I had "most likely" in my mind for USA initially, but accepted the authority of members who know more than me to swing the pendulum to "probably" for France.  Jury still out.

Well, I did rather sneakily say it was from France. If you look at the disused stations page I linked to, it says, under a similar picture:

I think that four-wheel rear bogie is visible in the quiz picture.

I have seen number 7 on another site, I think. Estonia or Lithuania?

How sneaky. I thought the writing on the board was 'Running on Michelin pneumatic tires' but it's a bit blurry, maybe it is actually 'tyres'.

7. Elektriraudtee , Estonia.

Hmmm ... I picked up as Lithuania ...  certainly the Baltic States.

My apology, yes, Estonia!

The question asked for the countries these vehicles are from, rather then where the pictures were taken, so for no.2 which had been sent visiting some confusion is inevitable. Adding the place within the country is a bit more of a problem, so maybe it's as well that wasn't the question.

I had no. 6 down as Swiss, very, but was surprised by Lausanne. I had that as more of a trolleybus sort of place, though it turns out there is one extram line (to Bercher). That particular tram was made for Geneva but left after only six years, then spent 44 years in Lausanne and 23 on the Bex-Villars?Bretaye line. But its last 44 years have been in the Blonay-Chamby museaum, which is part of the (still extensive) extram system around Montreux-Vevey. It was restored as a Lausanne tram, but is it from Lausanne?

That's fair comment and a far woollier question, perhaps, than I should have asked.  Of course, the very point of trains (or single vehicles) is that they move around  ;D and through their lifetime many of these vehicles have seen service in many lines and perhaps in many regions and even countries.

6 - UK (Brush Traction Loughborough) pictured in Taunton.

Indeed ... we had to have a picture of Taunton.  Tricky one though!

The bendy main street should have given it away. Indeed, my first thought when I saw the picture was that it looked just like how Taunton's main street must have once looked, there can't be many others that bend round quite as much.

From Wikipedia - the rise and fall of Taunton's trams



Were any other tramways so short-lived?

Should we arrange any sort of centenary wake?

Should trams be brought back to Taunton or anywhere else in the area?

Me wonders if they regressed to horse traction after the plug was pulled - certainly the most dramatic termination of a city tramway I have come across, other than Coventry!

Going back to No. 2 and our Michelin Mark 9, Warwickshire Railways (https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrwm421.htm) share the same photograph and names the locality as Widney Manor station, near Solihull on the old GWR. The bank on which the men are seen standing ties in with a cattle dock on the National Library of Scotland map (https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=18.543333333333305&lat=52.39707&lon=-1.77457&layers=168&b=1). I think the work in the foreground, including the light railway track and sleeper pile, is connected with the four-tracking of the line that occurred after the map I linked was published. Does anyone have a date for this four-tracking?

Seek - in Warwickshire Railways (https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/olton-to-lapworth.htm) - and ye shall find! A full-page article of December 1933, describing the newly-completed work "Olton to Lapworth - Quadrupling Birmingham Main Line". The Knowle and Dorridge station page suggests the work started in 1932, but if the picture shows preparatory ground clearance before February 1932 that fits.

But I think the dates of events and pictures of the various Micheline types are misleading, even if accurate. They were churning out several new ones each year, rarely two the same, so the one pictured could as well be a type 8 or 10 - or even 11. Note the rear door which can't be used with a bogie at the rear. And when or whether they were "in service" or "on trial" is barely relevant as the whole production lasted only five years and the "atomic jelly baby" type 16s were out scaring the hoses by 1933. The best set of pictures, though short on words, is this slide show (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7BNE_3p2xQ).

merci Stuving!