re-bassett-lowke

The Bassett-Lowke locomotives at the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway represent the earliest chapter of the R&E's history as a pleasure railway, when the model maker and miniature railway pioneer Wenman Joseph Bassett-Lowke converted the former 3 ft gauge Ravenglass and Eskdale mineral line to 15 in gauge in 1915, introducing small-scale steam passenger locomotives to what had been an industrial quarry railway in the Cumbrian fells. The most celebrated survivor is Synolda, a 4-4-2 miniature Atlantic locomotive built by Bassett-Lowke in 1912 and used on the early R&E passenger services, preserved at the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway as a representative of the pioneering era of 15 in gauge passenger steam in Britain.

Synolda represents the moment when the miniature railway concept moved from garden novelty to serious public passenger carrying — Bassett-Lowke's conversion of the R&E in 1915 established that a 15 in gauge railway could carry the general public safely and reliably through scenic countryside, pioneering the format that the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway would take to its fullest expression in the 1920s and 1930s. The preserved Synolda thus stands at the origin of the British 15 in gauge passenger railway tradition.