Tag Archives: Scotland

Chasewater Railway Museum 

A new item from North of the Border

A signal lever collar from the Glasgow and South Western Railway, cast iron with a brass label, reading  ‘Train Waiting’  (Sorry, not very clear in photo.)

The Glasgow & South Western Railway was a self-contained system in south-western Scotland with a total of around 325 miles of track. Its terminus was at Glasgow St. Enoch and from here in connection with the Midland railway expresses ran to London St Pancras via Carlisle, in competition with the West Coast Main Line. The G&SWR also served the important towns of Paisley, Ayr, Kilmarnock, and Dumfries. The locomotive works was at Kilmarnock but was allowed to become very run down and locomotive production ceased after the First World War. Boat trains connected with the company’s steamers at Greenock, Portpatrick and Stranraer. The G&SWR achieved surprisingly high speeds on its passenger expresses, and was remarkably innovative in its locomotive design.

The 1923 Grouping was a horrendous blow to the G&SWR, who found themselves in a subsidiary role to their arch-rival the Caledonian Railway. The MR and the G&SWR had tried to merge several times in the nineteenth century but had been told by the Government that this would be too much of a monopoly.(spellerweb.net)

A hardware example of Railwayana from a company not well represented in the Museum.

These three items are all that we have, apart from the signal collar.