Ballachulish - narrow gauge connection?

[Dunalastair]

Ballachulish station seems to suffer from being between large scale OS map editions, at least at NLS. However, the standard gauge layout is reasonably well known, with many photographs in books and on the web. The various generations of narrow gauge railway from the quarries to the quay(s) do appear on OS maps, with what looks like a NG served stocking ground beyond the station. By 1936, motorail-style NG IC locos were in use.  

 

However, it is not clear whether there was a significant railway traffic in slate. The quarries were running down even as the C&OR branch was being built. Were there NG sidings into the SG goods yard, a SG siding into the NG stocking ground, neither or both? And how might arrangements have changed over the years?

 

The 1907 postcard below seems to show rails alongside the loco shed (on the right), through a gate, towards the quarry area off-scene to the right. But are they SG or NG? 

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/46466362@N07/8888619614/

 

I have just ordered a cheap copy of 'Birth and Death of a Highland Railway: Ballachulish Line', which sounds interesting, but will probably not answer my question. The station and quarry history seem separately reasonably understood, even to the steam loco(s) in the quarry, but how they related less so. Which is odd, considering that the slate was one of the justifications for building this long and straggling branch.

 

[Dunalastair]

Unlike some of the Welsh quarries, there is not much evidence left on the ground of the narrow gauge at Ballachulish,  but the celebrated incline, with an arch over the (original line of the) coast road is now preserved as a monument to the labours of the quarry workers. I think that this linked with one of the wharves on the loch, not the SG railway. 

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/doffcocker/5954979388

 

[Paul H Vigor]

3 hours ago, Dunalastair said:

Ballachulish station seems to suffer from being between large scale OS map editions, at least at NLS. However, the standard gauge layout is reasonably well known, with many photographs in books and on the web. The various generations of narrow gauge railway from the quarries to the quay(s) do appear on OS maps, with what looks like a NG served stocking ground beyond the station. By 1936, motorail-style NG IC locos were in use.  

 

However, it is not clear whether there was a significant railway traffic in slate. The quarries were running down even as the C&OR branch was being built. Were there NG sidings into the SG goods yard, a SG siding into the NG stocking ground, neither or both? And how might arrangements have changed over the years?

 

The 1907 postcard below seems to show rails alongside the loco shed (on the right), through a gate, towards the quarry area off-scene to the right. But are they SG or NG? 

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/46466362@N07/8888619614/

 

I have just ordered a cheap copy of 'Birth and Death of a Highland Railway: Ballachulish Line', which sounds interesting, but will probably not answer my question. The station and quarry history seem separately reasonably understood, even to the steam loco(s) in the quarry, but how they related less so. Which is odd, considering that the slate was one of the justifications for building this long and straggling branch.

 

https://rogerfarnworth.com/2019/01/05/the-ballachulish-railway-line-part-3/

 

Station track plan suggests a standard gauge siding/mineral branch formerly crossed the road?

[bécasse]

I am reasonably certain that what you think might be rails are in fact the marks left by road traffic on a macadam road surface, quite possibly as the result of using traction engines to haul road waggons.

[Wickham Green too]

That's clearly what the marks ALONG the road are - but it looks like rails ACROSS it to me ............ and, by the shed, they certainly look like they might be closer-spaced than those of the parallel sidings.

[ejstubbs]

The railscot.co.uk page for Ballachulish station states: "A tightly curved siding ran from the goods yard to a pier at Rudha na Glas-lice* (the pier still exists in other uses). There was interchange with the narrow gauge quarry lines."  The "curving siding" appears to be shown on the OS one-inch maps based on the 1924-1926 revision e.g. this one** but not on the ones based on the later 1954 revision.  "Interchange" might be taken to mean that goods were transferred between standard gauge and narrow gauge wagons in that location, rather than at the station itself.

 

OTOH, in the absence of other evidence I'm not convinced that the description of a "tightly curved siding" might not be based purely on an interpretation of the 1924 revision one-inch maps.  I wouldn't necessarily regard maps at that scale to provide reliable detail for individual sidings (and let's not forget that OS maps in general can't be relied upon to be completely accurate when it comes to railway tracks).  That said, and accepting the previously mentioned caveat, the earlier 25 inch maps do show a NG kick-back siding running from out near the end of the large peninsula (marked as "Ballachulish Peninsula" on Google Maps) back towards the location of the still-extant pier, so maybe there was indeed some kind of goods transfer facility from SG to NG in that location.  But that would put it ~250m away from the station itself.

 

If, as the OP states, the slate quarries were running down as the line was being built, would there have been any useful function for an interchange between the SG & NG systems anyway?

 

* Shown as Rubha na Glas-Lice on modern OS maps.  Marked as "Ballchulish Marina" on Google Maps, on which the pier can indeed still be seen on the satellite view.

** There's a crop of the relevant part of a 1924 revision one inch map on Roger Farnworth's web site, as linked above, as well.

[Jeremy Cumberland]

It looks to be standard gauge to me, but it could be a wider narrow gauge (no less than 3 ft). The trouble with narrow gauge is that it does not appear to go anywhere. I suppose that goods could be transhipped across the roadway in the station yard to the furthest siding, but this seems an odd arrangement to me.

 

I have been strugging to orientate this view with contemporary maps. There aren't any large scale maps after the standard gauge was built, as has been said, but there was a 1904 partial survey for the third edition one inch map (coloured edition: https://maps.nls.uk/view/216169943). The end of the station building is oriented pretty much north south, so the lane in the postcard is headed somewhat west of north, meaning it cannot be the main road which runs in more or less a straight line south west to north east, and which I think passes below the view that we see. There aren't any lanes running north west on the one inch map, and I don't think what we can see matches any of the lanes in the 1897 revision of the 25" map (https://maps.nls.uk/view/82863579). I think the low hill in the middle must be Cnocan Dubha and that the headland at the extreme right edge is Rudha na Glas-Lice, placing the harbour and all the buildings shown on both maps well over to the right,

 

Regarding the prominent incline in your modern photograph, this was already out of use by 1897, but is shown with track on it in the original County series map, surveyed in 1870 (colourised edition here: https://maps.nls.uk/view/74478042), together with another line further to the west that crossed the road on a bridge (and which still had track in 1897). Curiously it is only this second bridge that is shown in the 1904 one inch map (now without a tramway), but both bridges are shown in the "popular" series one inch map, selectively surveyed in 1924-26 (https://maps.nls.uk/view/190219004).

 

A complete new survey was carried out in 1954 for the seventh series one inch map (https://maps.nls.uk/view/197235437), but by then all tramway lines had disappeared and the main road had been moved.

 

No further revisions were made of the County series 25" or 6" maps, and the National Grid 1:2500 survey didn't reach Ballachulish till 1972, which is remarkably late. The first map from this new survey wasn't published till 1974, so it won't appear on NLS till next year, but of course it won't show any railways, and given the changes in the 1954 one inch map, it probably won't even tell you much about where railways used to be, not from 1907, at any rate.

[Jeremy Cumberland]

37 minutes ago, ejstubbs said:

The "curving siding" appears to be shown on the OS one-inch maps based on the 1924-1926 revision e.g. this one** but not on the ones based on the later 1954 revision.

Well spotted. I had taken that to be a tramway, but it could well be standard gauge. It isn't shown in the 1904 one inch map, which instead shows the same tramway lines as the 1897 25" map. The "curved siding" could be the line we see crossing the lane in the postcard - it is heading in about the right direction, at any rate, and if I have got my bearings right, the pier is off to the right (but not as far as the harbour, which is in the next little bay).

[keefer]

There is a photo dated 24/5/1950 on the RCHAMS Canmore site:

https://canmore.org.uk/collection/1269527

 

Detail isn't great when zooming right in on the engine shed area but it shows wagons either side of the 'level crossing'. Following that line around (the curving siding), it seems to lead to a raised wooden structure like a loading jetty or staithe. It is hard to make out any track there, so maybe the siding was cut back and ended where the wagons are?

[keefer]

Just looking through the other Canmore pics for Ballachulish in general - Quarry workers on a self-propelled steam railway crane:

https://canmore.org.uk/collection/1075448

Edited July 25 by keefer

[Dunalastair]

10 hours ago, keefer said:

There is a photo dated 24/5/1950 on the RCHAMS Canmore site:

https://canmore.org.uk/collection/1269527

 

Detail isn't great when zooming right in on the engine shed area but it shows wagons either side of the 'level crossing'. Following that line around (the curving siding), it seems to lead to a raised wooden structure like a loading jetty or staithe. It is hard to make out any track there, so maybe the siding was cut back and ended where the wagons are?

 

Thankyou - that photo is useful evidence - I don't think that I had zoomed in enough on that one previously. There are indeed some wonderful images on the Canmore site, when it is working, which is not always. 

 

C E J Fryer's C&OR book has a full page image on page 110 taken in 1936 from the slate waste tips, showing the NG leaving the quarry complex, crossing the main road, and dividing into a fan of sidings in the stocking ground. That also shows SG vans alongside the loco shed  and rails apparently passing through that five bar gate. It could be interpreted as NG into the SG yard, but picking up on the useful feedback above, it does seem more likely to be SG running into the NG yard.

 

A related image showing the tramway leaving the quarry, but probably pre-railway, is on the quarrying facebook page

 

https://www.facebook.com/ballachulishslatequarry/

 

The quayside appears on the museum website, in a photo from Barbara Fairweather’s 'The 300 Year Story of Ballachulish Slate' which may tell more. The rails there look NG to me, but this may pre-date the SG railway.

 

https://www.glencoemuseum.com/post/the-story-of-the-ballachulish-slate-quarry

 

On p137 Fryer also describes a quay which 'adjoined Ballachulish station' for the three times daily steamer to Kinlochleven. That steamer ended in 1922. Given the aluminium plant in Kinlochleven (with its own electric NG railway, which I have modelled, and goods steamer service) it seems plausible that there might be a facility for running C&OR wagons down to the quay to load sundries onto the steamer. One of the steamers was (very briefly) the Britannia, operated by MacBraynes.

 

https://redrosecollections.lancashire.gov.uk/view-item?i=232770&WINID=1721981759102

 

An interesting comparison with Ballachulish is Aberfoyle, near where I grew up, a smaller quarry operation but with a rope worked incline down the hillside to the village and a horse worked tramway (which can be seen on old postcards) into the NBR station yard. Unlike Ballachulish, the OS did map this - see https://maps.nls.uk/view/82899981. Railscot has an image at https://www.railscot.co.uk/img/64/722/ and there is another, by the hotel, at https://collections.st-andrews.ac.uk/item/bailie-nicol-jarvie-hotel/16499/viewer#?#viewer&c=&m=&s=&cv=&xywh=-2012%2C-304%2C10231%2C4551 Aberfoyle quarry was a filming location for Monty Python and The Holy Grail - I knew some of the extras who appeared in that.

 

 

Edited July 26 by Dunalastair

[Dunalastair]

Back at Ballachulish, and considering gauge, the IRS Handbook has Ballachulish Slate Quarries Ltd owning a 3'4" gauge Neilson, as well as at least two 1'10 3/4" Barclays. Those locos pre-dated the arrival of the SG. Why different gauges? Possibly in the two separate quarry systems? The steam locos seemed camera shy - I don't think that I have seen a photo of any of them in service. In general, Scottish slate quarry railways (e,g, Balvicar, Seil) seem to be little known by comparison with their Welsh cousins. 

 

After the WW1 closure, the quarries were re-opened by Scottish Slate Quarries Ltd in 1925 with three four wheel petrol locos to 2' gauge (at least one a Motorail) which went to the WW2 high purity sand operation at Lochaline when the slate operation closed. Lochaline was an interesting (and very remote) Scottish NG system in itself. Lochaline sand train images are on Canmore - this loco has a cab, so was probably one of the later 1940 / 1941 machines listed by IRS :

 

 

https://canmore.org.uk/site/289085/lochaline-silica-sand-mine?display=image

 

It must be one of these in the photo in Fryer, albeit that had no cab.

 

Postwar, there were three Rustons to the same gauge - those also seemed surprisingly camera shy considering the interest in industrial NG railways by then. The tramway lasted till 1953 and the quarry till 1955. Can anybody point to any more loco images at Ballachulish?

 

Incidentally, the SG was opened during a protracted lockout at the quarry, so there would not have been any slate traffic then.

Edited July 26 by Dunalastair

[Dunalastair]

The Fairweather book is apparently very short, but that reminds me that when I looked into the Ballachulish NG before, the front cover of her book does have a photograph of NG in one of the quarries. I thought that this may be the other quarry (West Larroch) - the one further west, not the one by the railway station. Presumably any output from there which went by rail would have been carted. But now I think it may be Ballachulish proper. The 1897 map mentioned above shows the separate tramway systems in the different quarries as they were before the lockout.

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Short-History-Ballachulish-Slate-Quarry/dp/B001A0PI9M?ref_=ast_author_dp&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.A6sLpxxqNys1xF2Yv4VoSfmg7NkVnH8FwU0rk7gWjVzRWJWsefFZLRmTB8WQK7by6HwrGxkWcySrJN2SK02shaVxG3g9SbqAyNlsUvHk9ETuZhBJT0ixL6hOC9GT1qOKrYBfWoW-4q-0n50bWM-7alXUKi--tBwbV1UiMp_81GBMeyhutN8yRIKVD0kMpzJgz4j211EKBPuhkCKz0bJ_lw8D4vB6QVglY0EDVVs4fP8.zOb5uJjR4cTzRojo_j0LpbCQZkpvrBuHuF_-4mppA2g&dib_tag=AUTHOR

Edited July 26 by Dunalastair

[ejstubbs]

1 hour ago, Dunalastair said:

On p137 Fryer also describes a quay which 'adjoined Ballachulish station' for the three times daily steamer to Kinlochleven. That steamer ended in 1922. Given the aluminium plant in Kinlochleven (with its own electric NG railway, which I have modelled, and goods steamer service) it seems plausible that there might be a facility for running C&OR wagons down to the quay to load sundries onto the steamer. One of the steamers was (very briefly) the Britannia, operated by MacBraynes.

 

My guess would be that the quay "adjoining Ballachulish Station" might have been the one shown on the 1897 25 inch OS map at Glacantobair, to the east of the point where the slate quarry incline crossed the road.   In fact the NG line down the incline seems to serve that quay, as does another line from the quarry which appears to pass under the road a bit further east.  The doings around the harbour at Alltan Mhic Aoidh look a bit too industrial to have been much good for anything other than shipping out the slate, whereas the area around the quay looks to be a bit more accommodating to non-slate traffic.  As ever, though, photographs would help resolve the question.

 

Although the quay at Glacantobair would have been further from the C&OR station than the harbour at Alltan Mhic Aoidh, it would only have been about half a mile on foot - and I think in those days "adjoining" was perhaps a rather looser term than "step out of the front door and there it is" which might be the expected meaning of the word these days.  However, I doubt that a quay even further away than the one at Rudha na Glas-lice would have been connected to the C&OR station, so maybe the steamer did operate to there once a connection to the big railway was available.

 

(There was of course the Ballachulish Ferry station on the C&OR, mentioned on the Roger Farnworth web page linked above by Paul H Vigor, but AFAIK that was just for the short ferry crossing from South Ballachulish to North Ballachulish.  The ferry was retired in 1975 when the Ballachulish Bridge opened.)

[Jeremy Cumberland]

1 hour ago, Dunalastair said:

A related image showing the tramway leaving the quarry, but probably pre-railway

Definitely pre-railway. The station was just beyond the white building and the tree in the middle of the picture.

 

2 hours ago, Dunalastair said:

The rails there look NG to me, but this may pre-date the SG railway.

This looks like the "harbour" on 25" maps. The curving siding appears to have gone towards the next bay to the west, beyond the white house and out of sight to the left. A narrow gauge line also went here, shown on the 25" map.

 

30 minutes ago, ejstubbs said:

My guess would be that the quay "adjoining Ballachulish Station" might have been the one shown on the 1897 25 inch OS map at Glacantobair, to the east of the point where the slate quarry incline crossed the road.

I wonder if it is in the same location as the present day jetty. Admittedly, this is not shown in any map I have seen, but it is where the curving sided headed towards. It is top left in this satellite view from Google Maps. The railway station building is the Medical Centre marked in red towards the bottom:

[Dunalastair]

42 minutes ago, ejstubbs said:

 

My guess would be ...

 

 

That sounds like a good analysis.

 

 

There was of course also 'Ballachulish Pier' to the east of the ferry slips. This was where the tourist steamers called, to avoid having to navigate the narrows, with excursions to the likes of Glen Coe. Ballachulish was a much wider area than the community we recognise today.

 

https://www.dalmadan.com/?p=4485

 

Like slate quarries elsewhere, the local topology as well as the tramways and inclines would have changed significantly over the years as waste material from the 'big hole' was tipped into the loch. Tramway traffic was probably at least ten parts waste to every one part product - and possibly much more.  

 

You can see why an area of such apparent industry was a draw to the railway promoters - and how disappointing it must have been to find the quarries closed by the lockout when they opened their station. In any case, when the quarry reopened transport by sea was probably still cheaper to Glasgow at least than the railway goods rates.

Edited July 26 by Dunalastair

[Dunalastair]

Another early image showing the tramways and tipping arrangements. I think that is the loco shed on the extreme left. The site this came from has some other interesting material on the quarries, including a link to the Statistical Account of 1845 describing how the quarries were then worked, including tramways and inclines - but no mention of locos then.

 

https://exceptthekylesandwesternisles.blogspot.com/2020/05/ballachulish-part-3.html

 

Where much of the West Coast Scottish slate would have ended up - tenement roofs in Glasgow - in this case Port Glasgow, for better or worse since demolished. These would have been the equivalent of the Lowry terraced streets in mill towns painted by Lowry - and roofed by Bethesda and Llanberis. 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouverie,_Port_Glasgow

 

Shipments to East Coast cities like Edinburgh would presumably either have been by larger ships through the Caledonian Canal, or by puffers which could fit through the locks on the Forth & Clyde canal. 

[Jeremy Cumberland]

7 hours ago, Dunalastair said:

Another early image showing the tramways and tipping arrangements. I think that is the loco shed on the extreme left. The site this came from has some other interesting material on the quarries, including a link to the Statistical Account of 1845 describing how the quarries were then worked, including tramways and inclines - but no mention of locos then.

 

https://exceptthekylesandwesternisles.blogspot.com/2020/05/ballachulish-part-3.html

I agree with you about the loco shed, but what this picture also shows is the "curving siding", with run round loop and some sort of boat loading structure at the far end. Again, this looks standard gauge to me.

 

What we can't see is how this line crosses the slate yard. I suspect that all the narrow gauge lines terminate this side of the "curving siding", although perahps the one on the far right crosses it.

 

Notice too that the harbour (right) appears now to be abandoned. In the 1870 survey, the quarry line crosses the road (hidden by the waste tip at the bottom of the picture) about where the word Ballachulish is written, and passes on the far side of the low white-walled building bottom centre and then somehow descends to the harbour where there were several lines, seen in a photograph in a previous post of yours showing the harbour with two boats. The 1897 survey shows the crossing in the photograph, but the line (just a single track, with no branches or sidings) then passes beyond the longest row of houses (but in front of the short row just beyond, in a place where there appears not to be a line in the photograph) before dividing somewhere near the isolated buildings right of centre, with a branch going to the harbour. The harbour track layout is a lot simpler, with no end-loading docks. On the other hand, there are now a number of sidings out on the headland (which appears to be being used as a waste tip). But there is nothing to the left, where there are sidings in your photograph.

 

Given the extensive narrow gauge track changes, could this photograph show the 2' gauge era, post 1926 according to RailScot (https://www.railscot.co.uk/locations/B/Ballachulish_Slate_Quarries/)?

Edited July 26 by Jeremy Cumberland

[Ian Smeeton]

Britain from above has some images of Ballachulish.

 

This one would seem to show the SG siding crossing the road

 

https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/SAW029880

 

Zooming in (You have to Register) doesn't show the NG tracks, as the grain of the negative starts to break up the image. (Unless, of course, you have better eyesight than me)

 

Regards,

 

Ian

[ejstubbs]

I think that's the same photo that Keefer linked to on the RCHAMS Canmore site yesterday, though it may be available at a higher resolution if you are registered with Britain From Above.  The 1898 25" OS map shows a NG line running from the quarry, across the main road and passing between two rows of houses before continuing more or less straight out along the peninsula.  I believe this NG line, or remnants of it, can be seen fairly clearly on the aerial photo.  The map shows another NG line branching off it next to a building with some kind of enclosure (?garden?), and then passing on the other side of a second building as it heads towards the main harbour side of the peninsula.  Again, I believe traces of this junction of the NG lines can be seen on the aerial photo, adjacent to the two leftmost buildings on the peninsula which are partly surrounded by trees.

 

Looking at that photo again, I can't see any sign of the quay that was shown in earlier maps as being near the foot of the incline - the one which might have been the one used by the Kinlochleven steamer.  Given the date of that photo, though, that's maybe not too surprising.

 

I have just unearthed another reasonably large scale map on the NLS site dated 1942 which shows the curved siding leading to Rudha na Glas-lice very clearly:

 

 

Interestingly, it appears to show a second curved siding which branches off the one that leads to Rudha na Glas-lice more or less at the boundary of the station site, and heads towards the quarry.  Or is it a NG line from the quarry heading towards the station???  I can't immediately make out anything that looks like it on the 1950 aerial photo, though, and I can't help thinking that it might be a figment of some cartographer's imagination.  (What I do notice is that there seems to still be a hint on this map of the NG line from the quarry running between the two rows of houses on the north side of the main road, per the 1898 map.  I also note that the quay at Glacantobair is still marked on the 1942 map.)

Edited July 26 by ejstubbs

[Jeremy Cumberland]

1 hour ago, ejstubbs said:

Interestingly, it appears to show a second curved siding which branches off the one that leads to Rudha na Glas-lice more or less at the boundary of the station site, and heads towards the quarry.  Or is it a NG line from the quarry heading towards the station???

I think it is a representation of one of the narrow gauge lines in the Except the Kyles photograph. I see the line between the houses is still there, but now much truncated and now no longer going to either the harbour or the peninsula. I couldn't see any line between the houses in the Except the Kyles photograph, but it might have been hidden.

 

No survey information is given, but early 1:25000 maps were photoreduced from 6" maps, which in turn used 1:2500 survey data. It is easy to see the parentage of the 1942 map in the 1900 6" map, which used the 1897 survey (https://maps.nls.uk/view/75478710):

 

Clearly the 1942 map was only selectively revised (the station building is shown, but not the goods shed or engine shed, or any of the station sidings), and it looks close enough to the Except the Kyles photograph for me to think they depict the same scene, with some tramway lines omitted from the map (just like the station sidings were) and perhaps the line between the houses is an accidental inclusion. Or perhaps it was still there but is hidden in the photograph.

 

The Britain from Above photo is dated 1950, and therefore later than the 1942 map, but it is also later than the Except the Kyles photograph. I can't see any track at all in the Britain from Above photo much to the left of the wagons; the narrow gauge might not be visible, but I am pretty sure the curve leading to that loading structure in the bay has been lifted. It looks like the new road is being built, which will be shown in the 1954 one inch map.

Edited July 26 by Jeremy Cumberland

[Wickham Green too]

13 hours ago, Jeremy Cumberland said:

... perhaps the line between the houses is an accidental inclusion. ...

Clearly there's a short 'line' there - but is it / was it meant to represent a railway line or, perhaps just a fence line ??!? ( our railway-tinted glasses are too good at misinterpreting 'other' things )

[ejstubbs]

5 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

Clearly there's a short 'line' there - but is it / was it meant to represent a railway line or, perhaps just a fence line ?

 

The line definitely has tick marks along it, which is used to indicate railway lines.  Fence lines, of which there are many on the 1942 map, do not have tick marks, they are just lines.  I do rather agree with Jeremy that it's quite likely to be a remnant from earlier maps produced from the late 19th century surveys, when there definitely was a tramway marked running between the two rows of houses (per the map excerpt in Jeremy's post).  It's even labelled "TRAMWAY" on the map.  Maybe the 1942 cartographer had a faulty eraser...

 

19 hours ago, Jeremy Cumberland said:

No survey information is given, but early 1:25000 maps were photoreduced from 6" maps, which in turn used 1:2500 survey data.

 

The 1942 map is part of the NLS' "War Office, Great Britain and Ireland 1:25,000. GSGS 3906, 1940-55" map series collection.  The NLS describes this map series as follows:

 

This military map series at 1:25,000 was begun in the 1930s, but at the outbreak of War in 1939, only covered around a seventh of the country. Printing was then dramatically speeded up, so that the whole series was completed in a few months. Our holdings have printing dates from 1940-43. 

 

The underlying topographic detail was photographically reduced from the latest available Ordnance Survey six-inch to the mile maps, including the Special Emergency Edition (1938-9) maps made for Air Raid Precaution purposes. GSGS 3906 can therefore provide a useful surrogate to these elusive Special Emergency Edition sheets for Scotland (the Library holds no copy of these sheets), and a real update of selected landscape features for the historian. This topographic base was then usually overprinted with thick brown contour lines, enlarged from the latest Ordnance Survey one-inch to the mile maps. The map series was produced by the War Office, or Geographical Section, General Staff, and carry their series designation, G.S.G.S. 3906.

 

This is all our holdings of this series, consisting of 840 sheets. Coverage of Scotland is complete, with a small number of sheets covering the Isle of Man, Northern Ireland and south-east England.

 

As you said, the GSGS 3906 1:25,000 maps were based on photographic reductions of the latest available six-inch OS maps.  It's interesting that the NLS collection of this map series covers all of Scotland: it seems to be the only source of out-of-copyright 1:25,000 maps for a good chunk Scotland.north of the Central Belt.  This is a screenshot of the map selector zoomed out to show OS 1:25,000 coverage of all of Scotland for the 1930-1970s period.

 

 

The dark blue rectangles represent the modern "Explorer" 1:25,00 maps which AFAIK are all still in copyright, whereas the paler blue squares represent older "Pathfinder" 1:25,000 maps, many of which are no longer in copyright.  Compare with a coverage of the GSGS series maps:

 

 

Basically, it looks like if you want mapping for that part of Scotland at a scale larger than 1" to the mile for the first half of the 20th century or so then the GSGS 3906 1:25,000 series is all that's on offer at NLS.  Which leads me to wonder what happened to all the large scale maps of that part of Scotland that the OS produced during the first half of the 20th century.  Or did they simply not produce any, because the area is generally fairly sparsely populated and not much changed on the ground for several decades?

Edited July 27 by ejstubbs

[Jeremy Cumberland]

1 hour ago, ejstubbs said:

Which leads me to wonder what happened to all the large scale maps of that part of Scotland that the OS produced during the first half of the 20th century.  Or did they simply not produce any, because the area is generally fairly sparsely populated and not much changed on the ground for several decades?

I suspect there weren't any.

 

Scotland seems particularly poorly served by the Ordnance Survey for much of the 20th Century, so far as large scale maps are concerned. It looks like a 6" revision had been started immediately before the war (the post-war 6" map of Oban, for example, has a survey date of 1938), but this was naturally abandoned when the war started, or turned in to the GSGS 3906 survey. Then, after the war, it was decided that the entire country should have a completely new survey, and Scotland again had to wait while the more populous areas of England were done first. In the case of Ballachulish, the wait lasted till 1972 (plus another two years for maps to actually be printed).

 

The 1942 map seems quite a long way below the standard we usually expect from a 6" revision. None of the railway stations are labelled, for example, and as I've already noted, sidings and buildings that we know existed at Ballachulish station aren't drawn. I've noticed in other 6" revisions that areas haven't been updated perhaps because the surveyor didn't think the changes important enough, or perhaps they didn't notice that there were any changes at all, but I don't think I've seen a revision where new features have been added in such an incomplete manner.

[Dunalastair]

Thankyou for the useful discussion. From a modelling perspective, it looks as if there might be scope for SG wagons in the NG yard, for any product which did not go out by sea, but not vice versa. It would be interesting to know the comparative freight rates for slate by rail and by sea, but comparing with the C&OR proper, much of the non-time-critical freight apparently stayed with the steamers, even after the arrival of the railway. It was only late in the day that the railway took much of the aluminium smelter traffic, with the rundown of coastal shipping - and by then road transport was knocking at the door. I think when the Ballachulish branch closed, the Presflo traffic previously carried there was transferred to the Fort via the WHR, presumably with lorries providing a longer onward link to Kinlochleven, until that plant itself was closed.

 

I finished my book on the building of the Ballachulish branch, and it was good reading, though more about the life of an engineer than railways per se. Nothing on NG, and very little on the quarries, except a snippet that Ballachulish station was apparently roofed in Welsh slate, due to the strike / lockout in the local quarries at the time of building. Presumably that foreign slate still survives on the medical centre conversion to this day?

 

https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5822935

 

Edited August 2 by Dunalastair