First some backstory.
Shropshire's county town of Shrop seems to be missing from most maps, but if you start in the Ironbridge Gorge and head just past Market Blandings, you'll get there. The peculiar geology of the area leave a perfectly flat plateau above the town, barely a hundred feet wide.
Local legend states that Gwendol the giant, on his long walk home from Wellington, worked out he had been deceived, and in his rage cut the top off of a small mountain, muttering about cobblers, before getting lost again and settling down in Wem. The locals didn't mind, as it improved the view, but for a long time noone would build there.
In the 1840's, not wanting to miss out, the town organised a meeting demanding a railway. Where exactly they wanted it to run to wasn't clear, and as the town had previously imprisoned visiting canal surveyors as lunatics ("You say you can build a river?") no external help was forthcoming. A wizened old man in white offered to engineer the project but he was quickly thrown out of the meeting by a group of short men who lived in holes on the side of the plateau.
That was that until the late 1870's when Lord Emsworth of Castle Blandings awoke with a bad hangover, to his butler announcing that the jolly evening down the pub had actually been an auction, and he had purchased most of a railway.
"A railway?"
"Yes your lordship, in Bishop's Castle."
"Why the devil would I want a railway in Bishop's Castle? Have it brought here!"
Not one to disappoint his Lordship, the Butler passed on this information to the administrators. How exactly the railway was "Brought" remains a mystery, but a line was laid from just next to the gatehouse of Castle Blandings through to the plateau above Shrop. The short men who lived in the holes were very unhappy but noone bothered with them much any more
A small engine shed was placed at the end of the line, with a short loop and a goods siding.
The line ran the other way for a few miles until they ran out of rail, but after some extraordinary dealings, worthy of a series of humourous books, connections were eventually made with the Potts, the Wellington and Drayton railway, the Coalport Branch, the SDR, the SVR, the Cleobury Mortimer and Ditton Priors light railway, the 2' gauge granite quarry railway up the Ercall, four junctions with the Wellington and Severn Junction railway, and, finally, via the M&GNR's (proposed) Llangynog to Porthmadoc tunnel, the Merioneth and Llantisilly Rail Traction Company Limited.
Due to a far too complicated ownership structure, the line became an GWR and LMS joint railway at the grouping, but became western region at nationalisation. When the region boundaries changed in 1963, the line was closed, as the midland region didn't want to put up with the mess.
In the early 2010s the line was rebuilt for a short distance to a new "International Freight Park", but unfortunately it is inaccessible by road. As of now this has only been used for storing Pacers.
Right, that sounds about as implausible as the real railways of Shropshire, and gives me plausible deniability for what follows!
Shropshire's county town of Shrop seems to be missing from most maps, but if you start in the Ironbridge Gorge and head just past Market Blandings, you'll get there. The peculiar geology of the area leave a perfectly flat plateau above the town, barely a hundred feet wide.
Local legend states that Gwendol the giant, on his long walk home from Wellington, worked out he had been deceived, and in his rage cut the top off of a small mountain, muttering about cobblers, before getting lost again and settling down in Wem. The locals didn't mind, as it improved the view, but for a long time noone would build there.
In the 1840's, not wanting to miss out, the town organised a meeting demanding a railway. Where exactly they wanted it to run to wasn't clear, and as the town had previously imprisoned visiting canal surveyors as lunatics ("You say you can build a river?") no external help was forthcoming. A wizened old man in white offered to engineer the project but he was quickly thrown out of the meeting by a group of short men who lived in holes on the side of the plateau.
That was that until the late 1870's when Lord Emsworth of Castle Blandings awoke with a bad hangover, to his butler announcing that the jolly evening down the pub had actually been an auction, and he had purchased most of a railway.
"A railway?"
"Yes your lordship, in Bishop's Castle."
"Why the devil would I want a railway in Bishop's Castle? Have it brought here!"
Not one to disappoint his Lordship, the Butler passed on this information to the administrators. How exactly the railway was "Brought" remains a mystery, but a line was laid from just next to the gatehouse of Castle Blandings through to the plateau above Shrop. The short men who lived in the holes were very unhappy but noone bothered with them much any more
A small engine shed was placed at the end of the line, with a short loop and a goods siding.
The line ran the other way for a few miles until they ran out of rail, but after some extraordinary dealings, worthy of a series of humourous books, connections were eventually made with the Potts, the Wellington and Drayton railway, the Coalport Branch, the SDR, the SVR, the Cleobury Mortimer and Ditton Priors light railway, the 2' gauge granite quarry railway up the Ercall, four junctions with the Wellington and Severn Junction railway, and, finally, via the M&GNR's (proposed) Llangynog to Porthmadoc tunnel, the Merioneth and Llantisilly Rail Traction Company Limited.
Due to a far too complicated ownership structure, the line became an GWR and LMS joint railway at the grouping, but became western region at nationalisation. When the region boundaries changed in 1963, the line was closed, as the midland region didn't want to put up with the mess.
In the early 2010s the line was rebuilt for a short distance to a new "International Freight Park", but unfortunately it is inaccessible by road. As of now this has only been used for storing Pacers.
Right, that sounds about as implausible as the real railways of Shropshire, and gives me plausible deniability for what follows!
