Royal Arsenal Railway

The earliest parts of this railway system proper were constructed to standard gauge from 1859 onwards to replace an ad hoc arrangement of individual plateways.

[3] During the 1870s and 1880s further 18-inch (457 mm) gauge steam locomotives arrived at Woolwich from Vulcan Foundry and Hudswell Clarke whilst experiments were carried out under the direction of Lt. Col. F.E.

Beaumont into the development of compressed air motive power for rail usage on both main gauges of the Arsenal's railway system.

[3] The system's passenger service for workmen also probably began during the 1880s initially using simple 'knifeboard' carriages inspired by vehicles used in Chatham dockyard and by the Royal Engineers.

[4] By the 1890s, the goods rolling stock on the narrow-gauge part of the RAR consisted mainly of (1) a four-wheeled wagon utilising a standard wooden underframe with a cast iron double bearing assembly attached under each side to accommodate the wheelsets; and (2) a channel framed bogie wagon with cast iron bogie frames.

There were at least three designs of bogie carriage in use at this time, namely the original 'knifeboard' open pattern, a closed 1st/2nd class composite with diagonal body planking and a 'curly roofed' superintendent saloon.

By World War One, the closed seven plank bogie wagon using the type (2) chassis above was the most ubiquitous item of rolling stock and a small number of these even remained on site after the closure of the railway system.

[3] The first standard-gauge locomotive, Manning Wardle 0-4-0ST Driver, arrived on the Arsenal's railway system in 1875 and for the next thirteen years exclusive reliance was placed on the Leeds company's four coupled products for day-to-day working (even two out of the three experimental compressed air locomotives tested on the standard-gauge line during 1880–1 were officially Manning Wardle products) until a Hawthorn Leslie incursion into the market in 1888.

During the post Suez rundown, withdrawals of the steam fleet came thick and fast and there were even a few diesel replacements drafted in during the late 1950s from other Ordnance sites, but this did not delay the inevitable and the standard-gauge system closed when munitions manufacture at Woolwich ceased in 1967.