Plateway

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A reconstructed section of flangeway track

A plateway is an early kind of railway or tramway or wagonway that started to appear in the century prior to 1830.

Plateways were of two kinds, edgeways or flangeways, depending on whether the guiding mechanism was on the rail or on the wheel. Either way, the guiding mechanism reduced the loadbearing area that had to be built to support the weight of the vehicles.

Plateways were originally horsedrawn, but cable haulage and locomotives were used later on.

The plates of the plateway were made of iron and later steel, and were made by factories that were often big customers of the very same plateways. This feedback gradually encouraged the improvement in strength of the iron in the rails, so that eventually the iron was strong enough to support locomotive operation.

One edgeway type plateway was the so-called Gloucester and Cheltenham Railway, which was really a tramway.

1 Plates and rails
2 Advantages and disadvantages
3 Antecedents
4 Operations
5 Single Line

[edit] Plates and rails

The plates of a plateway generally rested on stone blocks or sleepers, which served to spread the load over the ground, and to maintain the gauge. The plates were often very short, able to stretch only from one block to the next. The main difference between plates and rails is that the rails were long enough to stretch over several blocks.

[edit] Advantages and disadvantages

Flangeways tend to get obstructed by loose stones, although the vehicles that run on them can run on ordinary roads.

Edgeways avoid the stone obstruction problem, but the flanges on the wheels tend to make those wheels unsuitable for ordinary roads.

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.

[edit] Antecedents

Even older than plateways came wagonways which used wooden rails or grooves cut in stone block to guide the wheels and to reduce friction.

[edit] Operations

The early plateways were usually operated on a toll basis, with any rolling stock owner able to operate their wagons on the tracks. Sometimes the plateway company was forbidden to operate its own wagons, so as to prevent a monopoly situation arising.

[edit] Single Line

Plateways such as the G&C were single track with crossing loops at frequent intervals. Indeed the single track sections were straight so that wagon drivers could see from one loop to the next, to see if any oncoming traffic was approaching.