Talk:Wagonway

message: When I found the article, it said that L-shaped rails had been cast at Coalbrookdale in 1767.  This is certainly incorrect, though such a rail survives in situ at Coalbrookdale.  I have corrected this, but the article is at present confused as to the adoption of various rail systems.  This needs to be sorted out.  Peterkingiron (talk) 11:52, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Iron rails 

message: Flangeways (flange on rails) tend to get obstructed by loose stones, although the vehicles that run on them can run on ordinary roads.
Edgeways (flange on wheels) avoid the stone obstruction problem, but the flanges on the wheels tend to make those wheels unsuitable for ordinary roads.
Modern railways are Edgeways.
Stone blocks had an advantage over timber sleepers in that they left the middle of the track unhindered for the hooves of horses.
Timber sleepers had an advantage over stone blocks in that they maintained the gauge more accurately.
Tabletop (talk) 04:14, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Which is which? 

message: Difference between edge wheel/rail and flange wheel/rail is small, and if you guess, there is 50% of getting it right (and 50% of getting it wrong).  This is confusing to put it mildly, and begs incorrect answers.  The solution, it is suggested, is to repeat the right phrasiology again and again until the correct answer is drummed in.  
Tabletop (talk) 04:34, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Guessing which is which! 

message: * Is this a valid term for L-shaped rails? In modern parlance the flangeway is the space next to the rail as it goes over a crossing which allows clearance for the wheel flanges. I can't find references to any other definition.
* The wheels that run on them may not have flanges, but would not be able to run on ordinary roads; the cast-iron rims are far too narrow and would plough up any normal road surface.
*The term "Tramroad" is commonly used for early railways but barely crops up in Wikipedia. Is there scope for a separate article here? . . Rcawsey (talk) 12:01, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The prevalence of the edge-railed railway has meant that we have lost the language to talk about early railways.  Early industrial archaeologists therefore coined terms to describe them, when they first discovered them.  Another problem is concerns differnet terminology in different parts of Britain.  In the northeast they were wagonways.  In the Midlands they were railways.  I recall a discussion between two people, one of whom called a small truck for bring material out a mine a tram (or dram), while the other had a different term from his own region.  A further problem is that a tram usually means a vehicle like a bus, but running on rails.  There is another article Plateway, which I was thinking of suggesting for merger here.  I do not think it helps to have multiple articles on similar subjects, because they are liable to overlap and even to contradict each other.  It is possible that we need sub-articles on particular aspects of early rail transport, but any Tramroad article should only exist as a redirect to here.  The same applies to Flangeway (currenly a redlink).  The present article is not excessively long, and can be satisfacotily expanded to deal with all the subjects discussed here.  Peterkingiron (talk) 12:32, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Flangeway

message: I suspect that recent edits have intriduced a contradiction: I thought Outram was a proponent of the L-shaped rails of the flangeway, not of edge rails.  I suspect that this article needs to be pruned of material that really refers to the origins of railways.  This is apart from the fact that the Wollaton wagonway was probably not the first, but the first to be docemnted: publication on this is awaited.  Peterkingiron (talk) 17:31, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: That is correct, or at least it is received wisdom. I'd have to check the dates but I believe Outram continued to build flangeways after Jessop built edge ways. Would a suitable marker point for the start of railway tracks vs wagonways be the introduction of fish bellied rails? Chevin (talk) 08:24, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent edits 

message: The Oxford English Dictionary lists both, but states that the spelling wagon-way is the oldest(1727), the reference being to an artificial road called a wagon-way used for taking coal by horse drawn coal wagon from a colliery down to the nearest river. It lists the first verified use of the spelling waggon-way to 1837: "The intended rail-road, or 'waggon-way', as it was termed". It also mentions an (attributed) 1764 reference:"If the waggon-way-rails...be wet sometimes, a man cannot stop the waggon". The word wagon is likely to be from the Dutch/German wagen. 28 September 2009.
:The problem arises from a coflict between OED and probably Websters.  Since the subject matter is largely British, perhpas the OED is preferable, but dsiputes over US/UK spelling are a source of conflict in WP that is not really worth the trouble.  Peterkingiron (talk) 15:49, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Earliest  use of spellings: "Wagon-way" and "Waggon-way"

message: , ,  and . Peter Horn User talk 21:02, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: , . Peter Horn User talk 21:33, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

text: The nearest 1 mm would have been OK. , ,  and  Peter Horn User talk 21:24, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

text: Some possibilities:
* 
* 
*  (fractions!)
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
If you would like templates that give conversions to the nearest 5 mm you could place a request on Template talk:Convert. I am sure that some whiz will figure out how to do that. Any way, to what tolerance, or allowance, were they able to work? Peter Horn User talk 23:29, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Conversions 

message: I've marked this claim as dubious, as there are a few remote narrow gauge mining railways in both categories. I'll try to find examples. Railfan23 (talk) 20:00, 25 September 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Update: I've found two examples, which I've added to the article. I am sure there are others. Railfan23 (talk) 21:30, 25 September 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  "No horse- or cable- hauled freight railway exists today"