In August 1946, a year after the end of the Second World War, a model enthusiast, George Archibald Dingle who lived at Kelly Bray near Callington, set up a miniature railway in the park and gave rides to the public. The locomotive, coaches and track were owned by him.
He had approached Plymouth City Council in May and an agreement was reached in July that Dingle would provide the track and railway and be responsible for its running and maintenance while the Council would receive 25% of the gross takings, out of which they would provide a ticket collector and the tickets.
The half-mile, 10¼ inch gauge, circular track was laid directly onto grass with no prepared track bed. The location is not recorded and is difficult to place from photographs.
The railway opened on Bank Holiday Monday, 5th August 1946. The following day, the Western Morning News reported that “One of the longest holiday queues yesterday was that formed by over 1,000 school children awaiting rides on the miniature railway which operated for the first time in Central Park, Plymouth. Long before the official opening time there was a queue nearly a quarter of a mile long and police and park attendants had a busy time at the station turnstile”.
The railway operated daily except Sundays from 2pm until dusk. George Dingle used his new 4-6-2 Pacific-type locomotive which had been built in spring 1946 by Travers John Thurston of Farnborough, Hampshire. It weighed 1¾ tons. Passenger stock was sit-in wooden bodied open-bogie coaches, which had originated from the Surrey Border & Camberley Railway. Each coach was said to be capable of accommodating 14 children and each train had between three and five coaches depending on track conditions.
Although intended for children to enjoy, there was a complaint that some were being denied a ride because “adults were in possession”. In reply, the Chairman of the Parks and Recreation Committee said the railway was “primarily for the children” and stated that from 5th August to 31st August, 21,886 passengers had paid for a ride, and only 2,786 of these had been adults. The railway ran until the end of the season, probably in early September. Then the track was lifted and everything presumably taken back to Dingle’s property at Kelly Bray for winter storage.
George Dingle wasted little time in preparing for the 1947 season and in January he applied “to reinstall the passenger carrying miniature railway at Central Park on the site which was allocated last year”. It was approved on the same terms as before. The railway opened on Wednesday, 18th June 1947 after a short delay due to bad weather. The following day, the Western Morning News had a photograph of the driver tending the locomotive with the caption: “After 47 years an engineman on the Southern Railway, Mr E S Pike comes out of retirement to drive the graceful 35cwt locomotive Tamar Queen on the miniature railway, reopening today at Central Park”. The same caption incorrectly credited Dingle with making the locomotive although it appears he had made similar false claims in other places.
The railway returned to Central Park for the 1948 season on the same terms as for the 1946 and 1947 seasons. It opened on Whitsun Bank Holiday, Monday, 17th May 1948, with the Lord Mayor being one of the first to take a ride. The train was drawn by the same locomotive although it was now known as the “Western Queen” after Dingle had swapped its name with another of his locomotives.
The miniature railway did not return to Central Park in 1949. George Dingle gave no reason although he had already opened another railway on the South Pier in Lowestoft on Monday, 17th May 1948 (the same day as the one in Central Park). Receipts had also been falling and maybe the novelty was beginning to fade. George Dingle sold “Western Queen” over the winter of 1948-49 and it found a new use the following Easter on the Thames Side Promenade Railway in Reading.
We are grateful to Peter Scott, a researcher of miniature railways, for providing the material for this article. There is a more detailed account of Central Park’s 10 ¼ inch miniature railway on his website: http://www.minorrailways.co.uk/publications.php Scroll down to Mini Histories and see No. 4.