Saltwood Miniature Railway
In the 1950s a double-headed (two locomotives) passenger train passes the engine sheds. The pilot engine (front engine) is 260 'Maid of Kent'; the train engine (further back) is 471 'Trojan'.
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| Locale | Saltwood, England |
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| Dates of operation | 1924–1987 |
| Predecessor | Located at Sheffield 1920-1924 |
| Track gauge | 7 1⁄4 in (184 mm) |
| Electrification | 1974 |
| Website | http://saltwood.weebly.com |
Saltwood Miniature Railway was a 7 1⁄4 in (184 mm) gauge miniature railway which first opened in Sheffield, but subsequently relocated to Saltwood in Kent, England.
Until its final closure in 1987 the Saltwood Miniature Railway was an important part of community life in Saltwood. In wider terms it came to hold a historically important position as the oldest extant miniature railway in the world.
In 1920 Frank Clement Schwab and his son Alexander Carlisle Schwab began constructing a miniature railway line in the extensive gardens of their family home in Sheffield. The railway network which they established was extensive, and was served by a passenger carriage and several wagons, built by the father and son, both of whom were natural engineers. In 1922 Alex Schwab went up to Emmanual College, Cambridge to read Mechanical Sciences, and in the same year the railway took delivery of its first locomotive, supplied by the local Sheffield engineering firm of Jupp.
In 1924 the Schwab family relocated to Saltwood in Kent, and the railway was dismantled and then recreated in the grounds of the new home. In 1931 public open days commenced, in support of charitable causes, and this led to a considerable expansion of the passenger coach fleet, and also the rebuilding of the locomotive into a far more powerful design.
Design also began on a second steam locomotive. Alex Schwab had an innovative design concept for a Great Western Railway-type locomotive of mogul wheel arrangement, but with an oversized boiler by GWR standards. He took these designs to Henry Greenly, arguably the foremost miniature railway engineer of the twentieth century, and formal plans were devised. Greenly's original drawings, based on Alex Schwab's sketches, are still housed in the Greenly archive collection. It is unknown who named the resulting prototype locomotive Maid of Kent, but Greenly had been the Chief Engineer of the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway, which itself had envisaged a locomotive of this name, although a last-minute change had resulted in this RH&DR engine being named 'Samson' instead. The Schwab/Greenly design became a classic of the miniature railway world, and many locomotives have been built in the 'Maid of Kent Class' in 5 in (127 mm), 7 1⁄4 in (184 mm), and 10 1⁄4 in (260 mm) gauges.
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