Build a funicular railway

Modeller and author graham goodchild puts the fun into funicular with this scratchbuild project.

The funicular railway is an often-overlooked part of Britain’s railway network even though there are (no pun intended) some 20-odd up and down the country. The premise is simple: if you have a steep hill or cliff, why not build a railway and haul cars up and down it using a cable, to save legs - both human and animal from the climb? There are numerous forms of funicular railway. The Great Orme Tramway and the Cairngorm Mountain Railway are, technically, both funiculars. The classic form is the short cliff railway with two four-wheel cars on parallel tracks. Most are now electrically powered, except for one of the most famous: the Lynton & Lynmouth Cliff Railway. It was with remarkable foresight that Victorian engineers built a mode of transport with zero emissions. Water is pumped into the tank of the car at the top. The tank of the opposing car is emptied, so gravity pulls the heavier top car down. You’d be surprised just how many towns have a funicular railway although the great proportion are located at coastal resorts because of the cliffs. That said, a working funicular railway will provide an interesting focal point on any layout. The main requirement is that there is some sort of hill or cliff feature on the landscape to accommodate the inclined track for the funicular carriages to run up and down, and also there should be space for the top and bottom station buildings. Obviously, the scale of the funicular depends on the scale and dimensions of your layout. Most funiculars are narrow gauge, so I always work to the same standards as traditional narrow gauge modelling: 9mm ‘N’ gauge track for ‘OO’, and so forth. My layout is ‘N’ gauge and there’s not a lot of room, so I chose to construct a funicular with just one 2mm:1ft scale car running on 6.5mm ‘Z’ gauge track.