Plateways - the type of rail the team found, with the flange on the rail. Unfortunately, they were cast iron and subject to breakage
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Get going, model railroaders. We expect to see plateway layounts in a couple of years!
Plateway layouts? Are you going to design bui8ld, and patent a scaslr-model mechanical horse for motive-power?
Or expect the specific plateway model-railroader to employ trained mice, his pet dog or cat?
Pretty sure plate-railways vanished prior to steam.
Any road locomotive will run on a plateway, just as any road wagon can, if the vehicle track (here meaning lateral wheel spacing) is suitable. So anything Trevithick built for the road would work; any locomotive with its flanges removed would work -- in fact the breakage problem is less because the contact patch can be wider and even a little compliance in the tread or between tire and wheel solves most of the plate breakage.
If grasshopper rodwork isn't challenging enough... build Brunton's Mechanical Traveller.
Plate railways diisapeared before steam replaced railroad animal mlotive-power and long before internal-combustion vehicles replaced road animal motive-power.
Still, this was the very-first example of rail-highway intermodal!
Wagons had to be lof the right gauge.
Why not build a plate railway as your garage entrance istead of a paved driveway?
daveklepper Why not build a plate railway as your garage entrance istead of a paved driveway?
Who will be the first railfan with a useful plate railroad?
Please post photos after you build and use it.
My grandparents built a house (20 Gershom Place in Kingston, PA) in the early 1930s that had a driveway consisting of two parallel lines of long concrete slabs with a grass 'median' in the center. (This was not uncommon in that era with grass or gravel; the idea was that any oil leaks would drop into the middle and not stain pavement.)
As a guide going into the garage at the end, he had curbs on the outside edges of the slabs, functioning exactly as outside-flange plateways...
Wonder who owns the house now. and if the concrete plate-railroad is still there?
If I were in a position to implement the idea, I'd do it and make it look as authentic as practical.The actual materials might reflect improved technology.
The house is owned by the same family that bought it after Agnes flooded it 8' deep -- and they say they will be passing it down the generations. Incidentally they have now been in it nearly a quarter-century longer than my grandparents were there!
And the driveway remains impertinently grassed in the middle, with guide curbs...
I can easily make Stampcrete molds and appropriate colorant for structural-grade concrete that will duplicate either painted or unpainted cast-iron...
Overmoda driveway consisting of two parallel lines of long concrete slabs with a grass 'median' in the center. (This was not uncommon in that era with grass or gravel; the idea was that any oil leaks would drop into the middle and not stain pavement.)
My 1880 house had such a driveway installed about 1933; over the years a few people remarked how they liked it.
But they never had to operate a snow thrower on it or, worse, shovel it.
Consequently, after putting up with it for 35 years, I had it torn out and a new concrete drive way installed (for $5k).
I love my new, smooth and broad highway. I only wish I could have put two rails into it like trolley tracks.
NKP guyBut they never had to operate a snow thrower on it or, worse, shovel it.
More of a problem was how you periodically had to care for the grass if you used calcium chloride on the slabs after blowing. Probably the reason some people used bare gravel 'ballast' instead of planting.
Something that came along much later that might have improved the idea was the 'vaults' that can be planted with plugs of grass but that have ridges that take the weight of vehicular traffic, so the soil doesn't get compacted and kill the grass. There are a couple of whole driveways in the Hamptons (and at least one tapis-vert) that were made this way, with the sprinkling below grade to encourage strong roots... you use guide wheels on the front of the snowblower to keep from 'scalping' the slightly uneven surface.
If it were an authentic recreation, most of the time snow might not reach the hight of the flat portionb of the plate rails, and snow on the plate rails could bw bruhed into the center. Not true. of course, for a severe snowstorm, so maybe the idea is useful where snow isn't a frequent problem.
Trolley museum nfor its vuntage bus and trolleybus collection?
Overall ciost comparisons bus-only lanes (private RoW) for a transit authority?
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