Groudle Glen Railway - Stock

Stock

Carriages
The railway originally had a total of eight four-wheeled coaches delivered in three batches; three were delivered in 1896 for the opening of the railway followed by one more shortly thereafter to cope with passenger demand, and a further batch of four arrived in 1905 with the second locomotive. Several parts of these vehicles were saved from the site after closure resulting in ultimate restoration of many of the coaches both on the railway and off-island. The restored railway now operates with four of these four-wheeled toastrack coaches in addition to the set of three bogie coaches that were built between 1985 and 1994 by the railway's volunteers based upon second hand underframes they had purchased, with a further underframe functioning as a runner in the early years of operations.

Non-passenger stock

Originally, as the railway was built entirely as a pleasure line, being manually constructed with no use of rail wagons, there were no non-passenger vehicles supplied to the railway but it is known that latterly, at least one of the original four-wheeled toastrack-type coaches had its bodywork removed and was used as a runner, supplying stock for the Headland Cafe below the line's later terminus. When the restoration began the volunteers required permanent way rolling stock to further the rebuild and so purchased a set of six "bomb" wagons from the R.A.F. base at Fauld near Uxotter, but of these only five have seen service on the line and until recently all have remained on site, out of use in poor condition. In 2011 all of the remaining wagons were deemed beyond repair and scrapped, with the wheelsets retained. In 2012 two wheelsets have been incorporated into a new-build tank wagon which is to be used in conjunction with the new toilet facilities at Sea Lion Rocks.

Modern Stock
The initial basis of freight stock has been supplemented in recent years by a series of flatbed runners (both four-wheelers and longer bogie stock), a large second hand four-wheeled brake van and a tipper wagon, the latter not being used in regular operation. As part of the Steam 125 railway celebrations that took place in 1998 the railway played host to its most unusual visitor, a hand made rail bike from Dr Karl Pischl in Austria. This unusual home-made vehicle was effectively a four-wheeled bicycle on flanged wheels. To replace a variety of four-wheel wagons that were time-expired, a new bogie works van was delivered to the line in 2011 for use by permanent way crews. This features an open wagon and covered accommodation area.