First garden RR in the world!

[markperr]

So it IS  true that the first Garden Railway Loco was actually a live steamer.

 Mark

[FJ and G]

Unable to find a photo (not many cameras, if any, then), nor an illustration. This might be the first animated wargame as well, if the garden railway was, in fact, used to illustrate the movement of soldiers and their supplies.

In the course of looking for this garden train picture I found that Elberfeld's name changed to Wuppertal in 1930. Also, it has a unique hanging railway, as well as a train store: http://www.hielscher-dampfmodelle.de/

 

ELBERFELD, a manufacturing town of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine province, on the Wupper, and immediately west of and contiguous to Barmen. Pop. (1816) 2 1, 710; (1840) 31,514; (1885) 109,218; (1905) 167,382. Elberfeld-Barmen, although administratively separate, practically form a single whole. It winds, a continuous strip of houses and factories, for 9 m. along the deep valley, on both banks of the Wupper, which is crossed by numerous bridges, the engirdling hills crowned with woods. Local intercommunication is provided by an electric tramway line and a novel hanging railway - on the Langen mono-rail system - suspended over the bed of the river, with frequent stations. 

[ttrigg]

David:

I wonder; were you able to find any pic's of it?  I'm sure there would be some kind of copywrite on them, so care would be needed if posting. 

[railroadinmedic]

Wow, would've love to had seen that thing! 

[FJ and G]

I'm currently writing a large book on the influence of railways in world military history (title will probably be War Trains or something a bit shorter. While doing research, I came across a passage on page 2 of a book by 

Pratt, Edwin A. (1854-1922) The Rise of Rail-Power in War and Conquest, 1833-1914, J.B. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia, 1916

 

First proposal for RR for strategic purposes advanced in 1833 by Friedrich Wilhelm Harkort, a Westphalian. He’d participated in Napoleanic wars and was advocate of steam engines, iron making and other industries. In 1826 he placed a working model of a railway in the garden of the Elberfeld Museum.