Seaside & Holiday Island Narrow Gauge

[Will Crompton]

20 hours ago, Will Crompton said:

Apologies, my sentence was ambiguous. According to the references I have seen the causeway was built to allow the tramway to be laid so it could bring raw materials to the works. I just came across this reference with a few more details suggestinng it was active until 1913.

Doh! I forgot to include the reference! Here it is.

 

https://www.cementkilns.co.uk/cement_kiln_sharps_green.html

[Marshall5]

Up to 1969 when they were sold for private preservation Bassett Lowke Little Giants 21 Princess Elizabeth & 22 King George ran at the Lakeside Miniature Railway Southport.  Both had been rebuilt by Harry Barlow in 1938 after a serious fire in the loco shed and he went on to build several diesel electric A4 lookalikes for use at Southport and elsewhere.

The photo below shows King George at the terminus near the beach circa 1963 (yours truly with dog)

Ray.

 

[whart57]

Another railway from the Swale area worth mentioning is the Davington Light Railway. This was built to carry workers to the explosives factories out in the marshes NW of Faversham. The line was opened in 1916 and closed soon after the end of WW1. Some of the line can still be walked along and the main engineering feature - a bridge under a minor road near Oare - still exists.

 

Explosives factories existed in the Faversham area since the 16th century and the one served by the DLR dated from the late nineteenth century. Considering what its output in 1914-18 was it's ironic that the factory line's first locomotive was German, a Deutz IC loco delivered just before the outbreak of war. This loco was probably metre gauge, and the rest of the line built to match it as sources quote the rather odd gauge of 3' 3" as the line's gauge.

 

The explosives factories had a network of lines serving the works and delivering the cordite to wharves on the Swale and to the barges that would take it up to Woolwich. The function of the DLR was to ferry workers to the factory from their homes in Faversham and Oare.

For this they had three Manning Wardle 0-6-0T steam locos (which presumably went nowhere near when the boom stuff was being made) which pulled trains made up of baladeuse style carriages with cross benches and curtains along the sides.

 

The locos were sold after the war ended and at least two ended up in Brazil where they still survive as museum exhibits

 

There is a thread on rmweb discussing this line here

[Nearholmer]

Don’t know about where anyone else is, but here it’s very dull, and raining today.

 

With apologies to The Thames Estuary, but could anyone highlight a proper seaside railway, one with sun, sand, and commuters in bathing costumes.

[whart57]

OK, I'll mention that the first steam tramway in the Netherlands was opened between the Rhine Railway station in the Hague (the modern Den Haag Central station) and the beach at Scheveningen in 1879. It was standard gauge so it will have to be "honorary" narrow gauge. It was so popular with German visitors (as the Dutch beaches still are today) that a second tramline was laid a few years later between Scheveningen and the Hague's other mainline station on the Holland Railway.

 

 

 

 

I stand to be corrected but I believe the lines survive as the city tramways (HTM) lines 1 and 9.

[melmerby]

22 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Don’t know about where anyone else is, but here it’s very dull, and raining today.

 

With apologies to The Thames Estuary, but could anyone highlight a proper seaside railway, one with sun, sand, and commuters in bathing costumes.

Didn't Butlins have miniature railways at some of their camps?

[St Enodoc]

2 minutes ago, melmerby said:

Didn't Butlins have miniature railways at some of their camps?

Yes. According to Ian Allan's "Miniature Railways" by Robin Butterell, 1966 (I think) edition, Butlin's had miniature railways at seven camps, namely Ayr, Bognor, Clacton, Filey, Minehead, Pwllheli and Skegness.

 

See also http://www.butlins-memories.com/other/miniaturerailways/index.htm

[Tim V]

Butlins Pwllheli certainly did. Unfortunately, the railway had been removed by the time we went there on holidays. Now a Haven site. The beach is quite a trek from the main accommodation area. I haven't got round to scanning my pictures of the remains yet. 

https://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/print-sales/explore-artworks/butlins-pwllheli-train-and-panorama-david-noble

[6990WitherslackHall]

Another miniature railway worth mentioning is the Ruswarp Miniature Railway. the 7 ¼ inch line is 700 yards long and runs in a circle. It first opened in 1990 and has two locomotives. 

[wombatofludham]

50 minutes ago, Tim V said:

Butlins Pwllheli certainly did. Unfortunately, the railway had been removed by the time we went there on holidays. Now a Haven site. The beach is quite a trek from the main accommodation area. I haven't got round to scanning my pictures of the remains yet. 

https://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/print-sales/explore-artworks/butlins-pwllheli-train-and-panorama-david-noble

Going off topic, I was amazed recently to find that during the 1950s there were regular flights from Glasgow to a field near to Butlitz Pwllheli by a Vickers Viking. The field offered "pleasure flights" over Snowdonia in a based Dragon Rapide, but the idea of flying on holiday to Pwllheli seems another world entirely to modern eyes.

[6990WitherslackHall]

A few images of the Ruswarp Miniature Railway

 

One of the site's steam locomotives: Stanley 

 

A BR Blue Class 20 look-a-like

 

 

Two American outline Diesels

 

 

 

 

 

[Northroader]

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Don’t know about where anyone else is, but here it’s very dull, and raining today.

 

With apologies to The Thames Estuary, but could anyone highlight a proper seaside railway, one with sun, sand, and commuters in bathing costumes.

[Nearholmer]

Ticks a number of boxes, but I rather doubt ‘sun’, given where it is.

[BernardTPM]

2 hours ago, melmerby said:

Didn't Butlins have miniature railways at some of their camps?

Butlin's Holiday Camp at Clacton in 1963 - Sun, Sea and Gnomes.

 

[Pacific231G]

On 22/02/2021 at 11:48, Nearholmer said:

Don’t know about where anyone else is, but here it’s very dull, and raining today.

 

With apologies to The Thames Estuary, but could anyone highlight a proper seaside railway, one with sun, sand, and commuters in bathing costumes.

I'll do my best. I can offer the sand and sun but not the bathing costumes though by way of compensation I can offer a boat train.

 

 

 

I came upon this railway while visiting the Ile d'Oleron  (south of La Rochelle) in June 1994.

It ran from a car park for no more than two or three  hundred metres (update, a little over 400 m) to the top of a beach on the north coast of the Island and took passengers to and from a boat or boats  that ran to Fort Boyard or around the bay. What you see is pretty well all there was. No points, buildings or sheds.  The train simply shuttled through the woods and down to the beach where the boards you can see to the left of the "platform" allowed boat passengers to  walk to a wooden landing stage to board the boat without having to trudge through the very soft sand.

I can find absolutely no trace of it on Google Earth but there's a been a lot of develoment on the Island in 25 years and the railway seemed to follow the principle of

1, use a bulldozer to create a level path,

2 deposit track on the path.

3, lift train onto  track and run it.

So, when it was removed it would have very quickly left no trace of itself.

I assume the train was put on the track at the start of each season and stored elsewhere for the winter. Possibly the whole railway was.

Edited March 4, 2021 by Pacific231G
update

[Pacific231G]

2 hours ago, melmerby said:

Didn't Butlins have miniature railways at some of their camps?

Weren't some of them Tri-ang Minic railways? ISTR that most of those were snapped up by holiday camps and showmen rather than for use in private gardens. I think Tri-ang did offer a "showman's" version of the loco with both bogies powered. 

[decauville1126]

52 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

Weren't some of them Tri-ang Minic railways? ISTR that most of those were snapped up by holiday camps and showmen rather than for use in private gardens. I think Tri-ang did offer a "showman's" version of the loco with both bogies powered. 

 

Yes, there were some variations. Whilst some had 'on board' driver controls (with some components similar to Myford lathes) there were some with trackside control for maximum fare-paying passengers. It's also easy to convert a single-motor loco into a double-motor if you have a spare motor bogie and a jigsaw!

[Giles]

1 hour ago, decauville1126 said:

 

Yes, there were some variations. Whilst some had 'on board' driver controls (with some components similar to Myford lathes) there were some with trackside control for maximum fare-paying passengers. It's also easy to convert a single-motor loco into a double-motor if you have a spare motor bogie and a jigsaw!

A friend of mine has quite a collection of the original triang minic 10 1/4 locos. Teeny little things - they can't have had a very long life in the commercial environment. 

 

Butlins Pwllheli had 21" if I recall - there was a lovely Princess with tender drive (I was very young  at the time..... we had saved up vouchers from the 'Eagle' to gain entrance for the day.) There was also a full size Duchess (?) And a Terrier?

[Pacific231G]

8 hours ago, wombatofludham said:

Going off topic, I was amazed recently to find that during the 1950s there were regular flights from Glasgow to a field near to Butlitz Pwllheli by a Vickers Viking. The field offered "pleasure flights" over Snowdonia in a based Dragon Rapide, but the idea of flying on holiday to Pwllheli seems another world entirely to modern eyes.

you'd not have have got a Viscount in or out of Broomhall as it was a private grass aerodrome with its longest runway 655m long. That was though long enough for the  Dragon Rapide that gave pleasure flights for Butlin's holidaymakers

http://www.butlins-memories.com/pwllheli/pleasureflights.htm

There was also a Dragon Rapide service to Broomhall operated by Cambrian Airways from Cardiff and Dublin.  However, with a fare from Dublin of over £8 I doubt it was used by many holidaymakers (though star "turns" coming to perform there would have been a different matter)

 

Broom Hall was bought by Billy Butlin - who was keen on aviation- in 1946 when he was converting HMS Glendower into the Pwllheli Butlins. He enlarged the pre-war airfield but not enough to operate Viscounts. For that, somewhere like Anglesea Airport (aka RAF Valley)   just 25 miles away  would be more likely but there may have been closer ex (or not yet ex) RAF aerodromes that could also handle such an aircraft. 

Edited February 22, 2021 by Pacific231G

[Ben B]

I think I have some shots of the remains of the platforms etc at Haven (once Butlins) Pwllheli.  I went to the place on a holiday when I was in my teens, and had a stroll one morning to look for the railway.  I gather a lot of it has been cleared out a few years ago when the site was expanded...  I'll have a look for the shots later on.

[Tim V]

I posted a picture from Butlins a while back. I think it was Butlins Bognor Regis. Quite a trek from home in Bath. Had the parents waited we could have gone to Minehead the following year - 1962.

[Marshall5]

I offer a contender for the world's shortest lived seaside miniature railway.  For a few weeks in the summer of 1967 Keith Wilson, a well known designer of live steam locos, built and operated a 7 1/4" gauge railway on the shingle along the top of Folkestone beach.  The line was just a hundred or so yards long with a run round loop at each end.  A short extension at the East end led to a large garden shed which served as loco shed/workshop. The rolling stock was a 3 or 4 coach sit-astride articulated set.  I was on holiday with my parents in Hythe but spent most of the week driving Keith's GW 63xx whilst his wife took the money.  Keith must have trusted me enough to run the loco while he got on with his other engine a 47xx (No.4711 - his little joke).  Keith wanted to extend the line as far as the Lees Lift but, IIRC, there problems with planning so he packed up and moved away.  Keith's Mogul must have had a long-lasting effect on me as you can see from my avatar picture.

Ray.

 

[Northroader]

Bit further north:

https://rogerfarnworth.com/2019/04/29/the-railways-of-orkney/

[papagolfjuliet]

The Camber Railway on East Falkland, which ran from the harbour at Port Stanley to the Admiralty wireless station. It was operated by a pair of Kerr Stuart Wrens which still survive in an ISO container near Stanley.

 

http://www.railwaysofthefarsouth.co.uk/11acamberrailway.html

Edited February 22, 2021 by papagolfjuliet

[009 micro modeller]

2 hours ago, papagolfjuliet said:

The Camber Railway on East Falkland, which ran from the harbour at Port Stanley to the Admiralty wireless station. It was operated by a pair of Kerr Stuart Wrens which still survive in an ISO container near Stanley.

 

http://www.railwaysofthefarsouth.co.uk/11acamberrailway.html

 

Not forgetting the Falklands’ numerous short jetty railways as well.