Weymouth Harbour tramway countdown

[KeithMacdonald]

If there's anyone who wants to model the Weymouth Harbour tramway using their own photos of the real thing, perhaps you better get a move on?
 

Quote

 

A disused railway line at a Dorset seaside resort will be removed after plans won more than £1m in funding, council and rail bosses have said. The tracks of Weymouth Harbour tramway, which was last used in 1999, will begin to be removed next month, Dorset Council and Network Rail said. They cannot be reused due to their "deteriorated condition", they added.

...

Up to 50m of track in the Pavilion car park, next to the old station platform on the harbourside, will be removed between 2 and 20 March, "to learn how best to complete any future removal", they continued. "These rail lines are fully decommissioned and cannot be repurposed for other uses due to their deteriorated condition," they said.

 

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-51677959

 

[Wickham Green]

According to a.n.other thread - which I can't find for the moment - “Removal started today of the Tramway track apparently, starting at the Ferry station.” ............ 'today' being yesterday, indeed the 2nd March.

[Owd Bob]

I have great memories from my 1970's holidays spent watching the 33's crossing the roads. Shame the million quid could'nt have been used helping preserving it rather than being used in destroying it. 

[PatB]

It's sad, but time moves on. Given that it was unused for more than 20 years, it clearly no longer served a useful purpose, and it's just not practical, nor reasonable to insist that every piece of redundant infrastructure is left in situ. Weymouth is a real town, with real infrastructure to serve its current population.

 

As I say about my own town when changes are opposed, often by non-residents, this is our home, not your personal theme park. 

[jim.snowdon]

2 hours ago, Owd Bob said:

I have great memories from my 1970's holidays spent watching the 33's crossing the roads. Shame the million quid could'nt have been used helping preserving it rather than being used in destroying it. 

But for what purpose? It hasn't found a use for the last 20 years, and when it was in use, at least latterly, I suspect that it was a right pain in the proverbial.

 

Jim

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Walked along the length of it last Saturday afternoon. There was a fenced-off compound at the end of the line by the old ferry terminal, containing a small digger. The idea is to initially remove the track from the Pavilion car park - the section alongside the platform at the ferry terminal.

You can find some of my photos on the WNXX website in the Recent News section.

[Owd Bob]

8 minutes ago, jim.snowdon said:

But for what purpose? It hasn't found a use for the last 20 years, and when it was in use, at least latterly, I suspect that it was a right pain in the proverbial.

 

Jim

Best to ask the Locals and the heritage group that! They must have had good a few reasons  My point is a million quid to destroy the towns history could be spent on something a lot better, i can't see what harm there is in leaving the tracks down, maybe too many soft snowflakes kept tripping over them and putting claims in.

[KeithMacdonald]

23 minutes ago, Owd Bob said:

My point is a million quid to destroy the towns history could be spent on something a lot better

 

Do I detect a slight whiff of exaggeration? It's not like the Coventry Inner Ring Road is it? (finishing off the parts of Coventry that airbourne visitors hadn't already modified)

 

23 minutes ago, Owd Bob said:

i can't see what harm there is in leaving the tracks down, maybe too many soft snowflakes kept tripping over them and putting claims in.

 

You jest, and I agree. Yet the local council's obligatory Risk Assessment of the "deteriorated condition" would have included exactly that. Some might say that local authorities are notorious Elf'n'Safty jobsworths and adverse to legal liabilities. I couldn't possibly comment.

[Wickham Green]

3 minutes ago, KeithMacdonald said:

 

........ You jest, and I agree. Yet the local council's obligatory Risk Assessment of the "deteriorated condition" would have included exactly that .....

But is the deteriorated condition of a section of railway track actually causing risks to anything other than a railway vehicle ?

[PaulRhB]

If you want to get rail traffic to ships there’s a much better option locally at Hamworthy where there’s still plenty of other industrial traffic. Weymouth was difficult to operate going by the problems experienced with road vehicles fouling the track in BR days. It would be a nightmare today with trains not allowed to barge them out the way and ground staff not allowed to bounce them round you’d be blocking the road waiting for police approved removal. 
Remember it fondly but it doesn’t have a practical future so railway money would be much better spent on adding facilities to areas with potential for expansion of traffic and easier access. 

[Ben B]

It's a pity, but understandable I suppose given that it's not used anymore.  At least there are plenty of photographs and films of it in use.  I'm always surprised to still see bits of street-running railways surviving around the world, particularly in the car-worshiping USA where there's films on YouTube and the like of massive freight trains rumbling down suburban streets.  I cannot imagine Britain going in for that sort of street-running ever again, barring the short bit of the Welsh Highland which I suspect is the only such bit left in the UK?  I don't think there are any dock lines or similar left with street running are there?

[Reorte]

3 minutes ago, Ben B said:

I cannot imagine Britain going in for that sort of street-running ever again, barring the short bit of the Welsh Highland which I suspect is the only such bit left in the UK?  I don't think there are any dock lines or similar left with street running are there?

There were trains rumbling across a roundabout in Trafford Park (but more as an elongated unbarriered level crossing) until fairly recently.

[birdseyecircus]

I remember around 1987 penciling in a trip on the quay branch on an all line rover. As we were walking to the quay station we came across our train with its route to the quay blocked by cars. The train was cancelled and I never did get to ride it.

 

Paul

[009 micro modeller]

3 hours ago, Owd Bob said:

Best to ask the Locals and the heritage group that! They must have had good a few reasons  My point is a million quid to destroy the towns history could be spent on something a lot better, i can't see what harm there is in leaving the tracks down, maybe too many soft snowflakes kept tripping over them and putting claims in.

I seem to recall reading somewhere that there were the usual problems with bike wheels getting trapped etc., but more of a problem than with trams because the flangeways are much wider and deeper. I think at some point there was a vague idea to run a light rail vehicle on it for tourists but having visited Weymouth a few years ago and seen where part of the old track ran (on a very narrow road) I can see why that might not have worked. Still a shame though.

[phil_sutters]

Them new-fangled steam driven contraptions - I knew they wouldn't last.

[montyburns56]

Just for a bit of nostalgia....

 

 

[phil_sutters]

There are three Weymouth tramway photos in this album of photos by my father - 

 

Edited March 3, 2020 by phil_sutters

[PaulRhB]

5 hours ago, 009 micro modeller said:

. . . I think at some point there was a vague idea to run a light rail vehicle on it for tourists but having visited Weymouth a few years ago and seen where part of the old track ran (on a very narrow road) I can see why that might not have worked. Still a shame though.

It’s also very much in the backstreets with a view of yachts so hardly a tourist draw. The views are on the Front not the inner harbour side  
Attractive to us as modellers with the town as a background but never going  to wow riders scenically. 

[caradoc]

Our family holiday in 1974 was to Weymouth, and the highlight of the day (for me anyway) was the train, by that time worked through to the Quay by a Class 33, making its way through the streets. Sad the track is going but as already said, there is just no need for it any more.

[The Stationmaster]

22 hours ago, jim.snowdon said:

But for what purpose? It hasn't found a use for the last 20 years, and when it was in use, at least latterly, I suspect that it was a right pain in the proverbial.

 

Jim

It was always a pain in the proverbial.  Going back to the 1970s one of our Yard Chargemen had been made an Under Shunter on the Weymouth Tramway on the very first day of BR's existence and he said it was a right pain back then.  Yes there were more trains then and the line was alot busier but even in 1948 or thereabouts there were regular problems with parked road vehicles leading to altercations about moving them which increased to delays to trains on the tramway.  

 

I was down at Weymouth to board a ship back in August 2015 and walked along some of the lower, quay, end, of the tramway and it looked to me to be totally unusable with flangeways well and truly blocked including by road surfacing in some places.  i think the only debate is whether it is better to remove it completely or just surface over it although the latter would never achieve a satisfactory result due to subsequent uneven surface wear.

[Wickham Green]

Didn't look particularly usable in 2013 ......... no doubt the Weymouth Envoy would have gone down there if it had been.

[Jack]

On 03/03/2020 at 14:50, Owd Bob said:

 i can't see what harm there is in leaving the tracks down, maybe too many soft snowflakes kept tripping over them and putting claims in.

 

Oh pants, I'm a snowflake???  And there was me thinking I was too old ... ;)

 

I've been down there several times on the motorbike and believe me, those rails are very treacherous on two wheels in the wet!  Motorcycle or bicycle it can be quite dangerous.  Unlike a level crossing where you mostly cross at an angle, it is descepively easy to get caught out on these.

 

It is made more dangerous by the almost unique nature of the tramway ... there is so little street running in the south of England that they really can catch out the unwary (I know there are several cities with trams, but they are all north of the M25)!

 

I'd like to see them used again, but a friend who works for SWT said they were surveyed in the early noughties and were beyond repair way back then.

 

Right, I'm going to sit in the fridge before I start melting again ...

[jim.snowdon]

42 minutes ago, Jack said:

I've been down there several times on the motorbike and believe me, those rails are very treacherous on two wheels in the wet!  Motorcycle or bicycle it can be quite dangerous.  Unlike a level crossing where you mostly cross at an angle, it is descepively easy to get caught out on these.

 

It is made more dangerous by the almost unique nature of the tramway ... there is so little street running in the south of England that they really can catch out the unwary (I know there are several cities with trams, but they are all north of the M25)!

It's not just two-wheeled motorists who get caught out - Sheffield Supertram were victims of a court case (Roe vs. Sheffield Supertram) after a car driver ended up meeting an overhead line pole in the damp, and there was one particularly notorious bend where the natural line of the traffic cut across inside the curve of the tram track.

 

Another problem is that rails left in the street can present problems for the utility companies, and many is the time when city centre works have unearthed tram rails still buried below the road surface. At when they are patently disused they can always be cut. I guess that would not have been the case with the rails in Weymouth until quite recently, as even if they were no longer in actual use they were not formally abandoned.

 

Jim

[Adam88]

The rails would only get obstructed by street furniture.

 

Edited September 3, 2022 by Adam88
reinsert lost picture

[009 micro modeller]

1 hour ago, Adam88 said:

The rails would only get obstructed by street furniture.

Where is this?