Description
The Great Western Railway decided in 1903 to inaugurate a system of rail cars and halts to serve remote country areas. The first such service was operated between Gloucester and Chalford. Lineside platforms were designed to be constructed cheaply and the rail motors were single carriages powered by a vertical boiler supplying steam to two 9″ x 12″ cylinders. The halts were placed where a lane ran alongside, or over, or under the railway, so that people could just ‘hop on a train’ at a point specially chosen to be as close as possible to the village or group of houses in which they lived. The plan was very successful.
Being cheap to install and operate, many halts were built and the scheme became widely known and used by the public. In 1905 there were 43 halts, in 1908 there were
80. This plate shows an official drawing of the standard halt. The platform was not less than 7′ wide made up of 12″ wide planks, 3″ thick. A rectangular timber frame stood beneath the platform, one such frame every 7′. This was constructed of 6″x 6″ timber braced diagonally with struts 4″ x 3″. The posts at the back of the platform which carried the fence wires were also 4″ x 3″. Longitudinally there were diagonal bracings 3½” × 3½” though as has been seen these were not always included.
British Rail
Shelter not included.
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.