Tuesday, February 01, 2011

Of Time and Tramways

I  have previously written about the Brill Tramway, a route that the Metropolitan Railway inherited in 1890 and which it tried to incorporate into its commuter network, only for the newly formed London Underground to close it in 1935. A few photos of the line survive, and some of the rolling stock is on show at the excellent Buckingham Railway Centre. But until today I did not know there was a movie showing the aptly-described "quaint" railway in operation. View it here and marvel* It took 40 minutes (or longer) to travel about 7 miles from Brill to the junction at Quainton Road, where passengers could change for trains to London (or Verney Junction if they really wanted to end up in the middle of nowhere).  And there are still days when the Met runs slower than that [a bit unfair, surely?: Ed]

*That link no longer works but the film is still on the British Pathe site. Rather than putting up another link which may fail in a while, just search for British Pathe and Brill and you will surely find it.

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