Mechanical Memories Magazine

Dreamland
MARGATE
Save Dreamland Update September 2014
SCENIC RAILWAY PROGRESS
The Grade II*-listed Scenic Railway running gear is currently being surveyed and
tested in Doncaster by the engineering company, WGH Engineering Ltd. We took the
opportunity to interview the team when they came to Margate to remove the gear last
month and boy, is their story interesting!
"Our history goes back to the coal mining industry from the late 1960's through to the
early 80s when we designed and built rope haulages, rope hauled vehicles, self-
propelled vehicles and locomotives for use on narrow gauge underground tracks.
We operated around the world but the NCB, as it was then, in the UK was by far our
largest market. However after the miners' strike in 1984 it became obvious that the
whole mining industry was going to change dramatically; it was certainly going to
contract and was definitely not going back to how it had been.
We decided then that we needed to start looking for a new outlet for the skills we had
gained over the previous 20 years and pared back the business to its most basic level.
The conclusion was that we designed equipment to run safely on very difficult and
challenging tracks.
A railway track underground in a mine is nothing like the underground in London, it
is much tighter and built on continually moving ground that can change daily. Even
with good maintenance the track conditions are very challenging with lots of very
tight curves, twist and misalignment, very similar to a roller coaster! That literally
was how we identified a logical extension to the business, which over the next five
years actually replaced the mining sector entirely.
As WGH we have been successfully designing and building all manner of leisure
rides; roller coasters, log flumes, suspended and ground mounted track rides and
much more sincel989.
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