Brill Tramway
In Julian Barnes' novel Metroland (1980), set in the early 1960s, a schoolboy travelling from the City to the fictional suburb of Eastwick found himself accosted on a Metropolitan Line train by an "old sod" who regaled him with stories of the old Metropolitan Railway:
Heard of the Brill Line? ... Built by the Duke of Buckingham. Imagine that. Had it built for his own estate, you see ... Do you know, I went on the last train. 1935, '36, something like that. Last train from Brill to Verney Junction. Sounds like a film, doesn't it? [8]
"Not one that I'd go to see. And certainly not if he asked me ...", thought the boy [9].
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Locomotives
The tramway was initially operated by horses, and by its own steam locomotives from 1872 until 1906.
The first two locomotives were 0-4-0 single-cylinder geared steam locomotives of the traction engine type by Aveling and Porter, works numbers 807 and 846. Both were sold to a brickworks, which kept them until 1950. No.1 has survived at the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden. The LT Museum is currently closed for refurbishment, due to be finished by Spring 2007, and No.1 is housed at the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre.
The next two locomotives were manufactured by W. G. Bagnall:
- "Buckingham", 0-4-0ST, works number 16, built 1876
- "Wotton", 0-4-0T, works number 120, built 1877
They were unusual in having "reversed" inside cylinders, which drove the front axle.
In 1894 the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway took over the working of the tramway, and by then two Manning Wardle locomotives were in use, one of which was replaced by another Manning Wardle in 1899:
- "Huddersfield", works number 616, built 1876, withdrawn 1899
- "Earl Temple", works number 1249, built 1894
- "Wotton No.2", works number 1415, built 1899
All three were 0-6-0 saddle tanks with inside cylinders. "Huddersfield" was bought second-hand but the other two were new. "Earl Temple" was later re-named "Brill No.1" and there may have been a "Brill No.2". Further research is needed. Ref.[10]
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Notes
- ^ Country Life, 13 May 2004
- ^ David Cannadine (1994) Aspects of Aristocracy
- ^ Metro-land, 1932 edition
- ^ Leslie Oppitz (2000) Lost Railways of the Chilterns
- ^ Dennis Edwards & Ron Pilgrim (1983) The Golden Years of the Metropolitan Railway
- ^ Metro-land (1973) in John Guest (ed 1978) The Best of Betjeman
- ^ See generally Mike Horne (2003) The Metropolitan Line; Douglas Rose, The London Underground: A Diagrammatic History, 7th edition.
- ^ Julian Barnes (1980) Metroland, Chapter 5
- ^ Barnes, Metroland, Chapter 5
- ^ The Wotton Tramway (Brill Branch) by Ken Jones, published by the Oakwood Press in 1974
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