Seaside & Holiday Island Narrow Gauge

[Ben B]

Not much sun, but plenty of railway

 

 

[Nearholmer]

14 minutes ago, Ben B said:

Not much sun,

 

The story of last summer, from what I recall. Only one really hot week, and several when it rained!

[Ben B]

55 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

 

The story of last summer, from what I recall. Only one really hot week, and several when it rained!

 

It was a bit of a wierd one though in Wales- we went for three visits over the 6-week holiday.  We had a week in mid-August where it rained for a week (which was handy as we were editing a wedding shoot, and didn't need the distraction of trips to the beach), but we had some other really madly hot days...

 

 

...the above was taken (token arty shot whilst the kids were taking a break from volleyball) on a beach at Abererch, technically a railway connection as the Cambrian Coast line runs just behind the dunes.  This was taken about 6pm where the temperature was still in the high 20's, which seemed a bit mad.  We had a picnic tea on the beach, it was like sitting in the mid-day sun!

 

 

[sleepyrider]

Definitely traditional seaside weather on Hayling Island last July...

 

[whart57]

Are we allowed a fantasy seaside railway or tramway?

 

A Society Zoom call a few weeks ago was on the subject of tramway modelling and that made me dig out one of my (many) part built kits. This one was of a Black Country Tramways "Tividale" car. I was interested in it because the Kidderminster and Stourport had these after WW1 and I was actually living in Stourport on Severn at the time. It's a white metal kit, but a rather superior one in many ways. Of course I did make a rod for my back by building the chassis to 14mm gauge (the Black Country system was 3'6" gauge) so it's never actually run on any track. However it's now on my desk in the natty apple green and yellowy cream livery I gave it, that, I recall, being the livery the preserved example at the Black Country museum in Dudley was in at that time. I keep thinking that it's a nice model and I really ought to finish it.

 

If I do finish it, then what to do with it? How to display it and in what context? Originally I had plans for a tramway layout based on the narrow streets between Stourport High Street and the main road to Kidderminster. Unfortunately I have mislaid the photographs I took of the various buildings and as I don't fancy redoing the research and I am not a fan of Metcalfeshire that idea is dropped.

 

A fantasy tramway then. Well when I start having these fantasy railway thoughts I keep coming back to my boyhood home town of Herne Bay in Kent. I have a number of threads and contributions on rmweb already on ideas based around that bit of the North Kent coast. So what about a tramway running the length of Herne Bay's sea front? In a few idle moments I pulled some 25" to the mile maps down from the NLS website, patched together a representation of Herne Bay in the late 1930s and then drew on a route for the tramway.

 

 

The length of the line comes out at about 1¾ miles and runs from the edges of the town as far as holiday makers in the 1930s and 1950s would have been concerned. Certainly, all the sea front boarding houses would have had a tram stop close by.

 

For operations and maintenance purposes I've given it a 200 yard long branch to the back of what was then the East Kent bus garage where tramcars could be stored and maintained. (The EK bus garage actually survived until about ten years ago)

 

The line is single throughout with a passing loop in front of the pier, another at the east end of the sea front where the promenade turns up to join the road to Canterbury, and passing loops with a stub at each end. Except for a short section by the Ship Inn, in the oldest part of town, where the road is narrow and the track has to run down the middle of the road, the track runs along a reserved section between road and promenade. In the relatively car free 1950s this would have been feasible. By the end of the 1960s however that space was just a long string of parked cars. The far ends of the line I have on private tracks cut into the rising ground between beach and cliff top.

 

Normal operation I envisage to be using single deck tramcars (obtained second hand when the Black Country system closed) pulling an open trailer. Open top double deckers were frowned on by the 1930s. At an average speed of 12 mph, allowing for stops, it would take about eight or nine minutes to do the complete run. Allow ten minutes to disembark passengers, drop the trailer and pick up a new one, swing the trolley pole round and board the new passengers and that means a single car could maintain a forty minute headway. As a reference that is what the East Kent town services maintained in the 1950s.

 

In high summer however the East Kent had to run a 20 minute headway on the service 39 connecting the caravan camps of Reculver with the town, so we should assume the tramway was also busier on bank holidays and during the July-August high season, particularly at weekends. Possibly as many as three motor cars could operate a 15 minute headway service. Three motor cars would require the passing loops at the pier and Marine Parade  and presumably a signal light system similar to that used in the Black Country that would automatically warn a driver arriving at a passing loop if there were an oncoming tram in the section ahead.

 

What about a history? Well perhaps an entrepreneur operated a horse tram service between the pier and the Downs gardens at the East end of town in the 1890s and that struggled on with equine power until the 1930s. It may well have closed during the 1930s crisis, rails still in place but not operating. Then the Isle of Thanet Tramways closed, being replaced by buses, and someone associated with the Herne Bay system saw an opportunity to use a lot of this second hand kit to revive the system. The Thanet cars were old fashioned and worn out though but more modern cars were available from the Black Country closure and these could haul the old horse drawn trailers. In fine weather it was the open trailers that were popular. A number of the Black Country "Tividale" cars were modified to have the side windows open outwards and drop down to be secured against the body side. I believe this was so they could be used on the Kinver light railway, a line that had primarily day tripper traffic on summer weekends. I'd assume the Herne Bay cars to have this modification.

 

World War Two intervened before much could be done but in 1945 the council was prepared to assist in the revival using the kit that had been kept in store. Presumably the seafront had been given barbed wire and other nasties for anti-invasion purposes and as part of the clear up the tracks could be relaid. The line was extended at each end so that shunting moves could be done away from promenading holiday makers. So lets surmise the line opened at Easter 1946 and continued to operate as a summer only service through the 1950s. However a combination of the second hand gear wearing out and increased car ownership meant continuation would require considerable investment so that the 1959 season was the last.

 

Fantastic enough? I think I'll have to finish the Tividale car though.

 

Edited March 2, 2023 by whart57
A bit of revision

[Nearholmer]

Didn’t Herne Bay have a conduit-electrified tramway on the pier? Could yours not be a simple expansion of that, thereby saving the trouble of OHLE?

 

Fantasy is encouraged in this thread, BTW, given that it started as an escapist fantasy when we were all locked down and the weather was horrible. 

[whart57]

20 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Didn’t Herne Bay have a conduit-electrified tramway on the pier? Could yours not be a simple expansion of that, thereby saving the trouble of OHLE?

 

Herne Bay had a tramway on the pier but it was battery powered. As this pic from the 1960s shows, no conduit.

 

 

The tram didn't return after the war as the Royal Engineers had blown two holes in the pier as an anti-invasion measure and though the gaps were bridged by Bailey bridges the tramway rails weren't extended over them. However the battery powered car was open so may well have found a second life as a trailer car on the seafront tramway.

 

(I don't remember the weather ever being that nice when my friends and me went fishing off the pier though ......)

[Nearholmer]

It was electrified at some stage in its history I’m fairly sure - I’ll see if I can find the relevant little book and report further.

[Northroader]

I’d be inclined to have the eastern terminus outside the “King Ethelbert” In Reculver, a very pleasant situation.

r

[009 micro modeller]

13 hours ago, whart57 said:

 

Herne Bay had a tramway on the pier but it was battery powered. As this pic from the 1960s shows, no conduit.

 

 

The tram didn't return after the war as the Royal Engineers had blown two holes in the pier as an anti-invasion measure and though the gaps were bridged by Bailey bridges the tramway rails weren't extended over them. However the battery powered car was open so may well have found a second life as a trailer car on the seafront tramway.

 

(I don't remember the weather ever being that nice when my friends and me went fishing off the pier though ......)

 

12 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

It was electrified at some stage in its history I’m fairly sure - I’ll see if I can find the relevant little book and report further.

As per Keith Turner’s Pier Railways & Tramways of the British Isles (Oakwood Press 1999, pp.11-20) it was originally hand and sometimes sail-powered, very early in its history (1840s and possibly 30s). This was on the first pier. From the 1890s the second pier had a railway originally fitted to allow a crane to run during construction and subsequently electrified with an off-centre conduit to power electric vehicles. The tramway closed for WW1 and reopened afterwards (but apparently not until 1925) without the conduit or any other electrification; services were now provided by a locally built petrol-electric tramcar which proved unreliable. It was converted to a trailer and hauled by a battery vehicle delivered by Hibberd in 1934. The tramway closed at the outbreak of war in 1939 and did not reopen afterwards.

[Nearholmer]

The very book I was going to look in, when I could find it. 

 

I can’t find a picture on-line showing the conduit system, unless it was so far off-centre as to be impossible to pick-out from the running rails and their guarding. Does the book contain a picture of it?

 

Wait a mo …… I think this shows the conduit slot.

 

Edited May 11, 2022 by Nearholmer

[whart57]

25 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

The very book I was going to look in, when I could find it. 

 

I can’t find a picture on-line showing the conduit system, unless it was so far off-centre as to be impossible to pick-out from the running rails and their guarding. Does the book contain a picture of it?

 

Wait a mo …… I think this shows the conduit slot.

 

 

So both conduit and battery powered, albeit at different times. Those open cars look to be suitable trailers for my imaginary line though

[whart57]

41 minutes ago, 009 micro modeller said:

The tramway closed at the outbreak of war in 1939 and did not reopen afterwards.

 

No, but I found on the Facebook page of the Railways of Herne Bay History Group some pictures of this miniature railway laid on the pier after the war

 

 

I have absolutely no memory of this, nor do I remember any of my friends talking about it so my guess is that it had gone by the mid 1950s

 

[whart57]

And here is a picture of the locomotives used

 

[Nearholmer]

They're interesting locos, because they seem to be early examples of the "utilitarian miniature" school of design, which has become very widespread over the past c40 years, big locos that are much more like 2ft gauge machines than true miniatures of SG locos, and bulkier even than Greenly-type locos, which always look Cape Gauge to me. I bet the guy built the smaller one first, then realised that he could push the concept further.

 

Anyone know who designed/built them?

[whart57]

6 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Anyone know who designed/built them?

 

According to that Facebook site the builder is believed to be one Joe Liversage. The FB contributor goes on to say that Liversage was a regular contributor to Model Engineer and that he was born in Manchester in 1899, moved to Herne Bay after the war and died in Herne Bay in 1980.

 

One of the locos shown went on to the Hilton Valley Railway, an enterprise of which I know precisely nothing.

[St Enodoc]

15 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

They're interesting locos, because they seem to be early examples of the "utilitarian miniature" school of design, which has become very widespread over the past c40 years, big locos that are much more like 2ft gauge machines than true miniatures of SG locos, and bulkier even than Greenly-type locos, which always look Cape Gauge to me. I bet the guy built the smaller one first, then realised that he could push the concept further.

 

Anyone know who designed/built them?

There's something here:

 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/731841680183334/posts/4372656489435150/

 

It's corroborated in part by Ian Allan's "Miniature Railways" (1966?) which states that Hilton Valley Railway no 2 "Hilton Queen" was built by Joseph N Liversage in 1950 and ran previously on Herne Bay Pier as "Teddy".

 

Edit: posts crossed.

 

The Hilton Valley Railway was an extensive 7.25" gauge private miniature railway in Shropshire, regarded as one of the best of its kind at the time (1960s/70s).

 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/rtDisusedMiniatureRailways/posts/1404466046583396/

Edited May 11, 2022 by St Enodoc

[009 micro modeller]

4 hours ago, whart57 said:

 

No, but I found on the Facebook page of the Railways of Herne Bay History Group some pictures of this miniature railway laid on the pier after the war

 

 

I have absolutely no memory of this, nor do I remember any of my friends talking about it so my guess is that it had gone by the mid 1950s

 

I’ll have to have another look at the Oakwood Press book as I’m pretty sure one of the photos in it shows the miniature railway, installed alongside and over the original tramway tracks, although oddly the text makes no reference to the miniature line. This is in contrast to the Walton-on-the-Naze chapter, where the replacement 2ft gauge miniature line, also unrelated to the original pier railway, is given a mention. Perhaps being under 15 inch gauge, the Herne Bay line was felt to be outside the scope of the book? There’s some more information here: https://sussexhistoryforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=18584.0

 

The 7 1/4” gauge (as opposed to, say, 9 1/2” or 10 1/4”) is slightly surprising to me, although the sit-astride design of the coaches would seem to confirm this (the ones used on today’s Moors Valley Railway are similar, and that’s another “heavy/large loading gauge” 7 1/4” line with big locos rather than semi-scale models of standard gauge prototypes).

 

4 hours ago, whart57 said:

 

So both conduit and battery powered, albeit at different times. Those open cars look to be suitable trailers for my imaginary line though

Yes - so far off-centre it almost looks like a check rail or something.

[Nearholmer]

The loco put me in mind of the Moors Valley straight away. It’s not at the seaside, so strictly shouldn’t be discussed here, but we rode on it one day, and went to Bournemouth Beach the next, so it creeps in.

 

I was greatly impressed with it, and the children seemed to enjoy it too, although they were more impressed by Peppa Pig World, being of that age at the time (actually, thinking about it, I’m not totally sure youngest was even born!).

Edited May 11, 2022 by Nearholmer

[Andy Kirkham]

6 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

 

The Hilton Valley Railway was an extensive 7.25" gauge private miniature railway in Shropshire, regarded as one of the best of its kind at the time (1960s/70s).

 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/rtDisusedMiniatureRailways/posts/1404466046583396/

 

When we used to visit Uncle Harry and Auntie Edie in Birmingham, they always used to arrange an interesting outing (in contrast to other relatives who considered sitting round drinking tea and chatting as the pefect culmination of a visit) and the Hilton Valley was a destination on a couple of occasions. 

 

The Hilton Valley was built by Michael Lloyd, owner of the F H Lloyd foundry in the Black Country. There seems to have been a fondness for miniature railways among West Midlands industrialists, as there was also the Sutton Partk Line (Tommy Hunt of Hunt Bros, Oldbury) and the Fairbourne (John Wilkins of Servis washing machines).

 

The Hilton Valley had a loco named Francis Henry Lloyd. Sadly, Michael Lloyd died in a hotel fire in Exmouth in 1973.

 

Interesting videos here. It appears that someone was attempting to revive the line.

 

 

Edited May 11, 2022 by Andy Kirkham

[whart57]

18 hours ago, 009 micro modeller said:

I’ll have to have another look at the Oakwood Press book as I’m pretty sure one of the photos in it shows the miniature railway, installed alongside and over the original tramway tracks, although oddly the text makes no reference to the miniature line.

 

 

The first photograph shows the miniature line at the pavilion end. Herne Bay pier had a large pavilion at the land end (I watched it burn down in 1970 as I was on study leave for A levels and wondered why so many fire engines were coming down the High Street). The site of the pavilion (and its 1970s successor) is still there as a wide open space and was filled with pop up stalls and amusements when I was there last summer. The passage around the pavilion was quite narrow so none of the tramways on the third pier reached land. Apparently the tramway on the first pier did and the second pier was only a shortie. Running through the pavilion was not an option as it was a theatre during the summer and a roller hockey rink in winter.

Now what interests me is whether this miniature line did the entire length of the pier. The reason I ask is the aforementioned gaps blown in the pier by the Royal Engineers in 1940. They were bridged by Bailey bridges in 1945 and these I recall were quite narrow. The first of the bridges was immediately after the Pavilion on the seaward side, where the "tunnel" is in the first photograph. It is not clear whether the tracks continue there or not. The second gap was about half way out, so possibly 500 yards on. Many miniature railways would consider that an adequate run so my guess is that the railway only ran between the two Bailey bridges.

[whart57]

20 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

the children seemed to enjoy it too, although they were more impressed by Peppa Pig World

 

Prime Ministerial material then .........

[whart57]

On 11/05/2022 at 10:01, Northroader said:

I’d be inclined to have the eastern terminus outside the “King Ethelbert” In Reculver, a very pleasant situation.

r

 

Indeed but also very remote, in the 40s and 50s  there was about a mile of nothing between the terminus I suggested and Reculver. The buses took a more inland route, including incidentally the real life number 44 open top service which started c 1960 which didn't touch the coast until my imaginary tram terminus.

 

Trivia detail. East Kent (and presumably now Stagecoach) own about 60 sq yd of land next to the silver car. They bought it in the 1950s for a reversing neck. I remember the conductors using hand signals to help their drivers reverse. Presumably today's drivers rely on bleepers and cameras.

[whart57]

This picture of the pier head terminus I found on the internet clearly shows the conduit rail offset to one side

[whart57]

1 minute ago, 21C1 said:

Do youi think that young lady could be the conductor (ess)? She has what looks like a coin purse attached to her belt?? She also appears to be dressed in a kind of uniform.

 

Judging by the grip she has on her boater hat I doubt that would be a practical uniform for someone working on a line that is out at sea the whole time. In any case conduit operation was before WW1, when the tramway resumed after the wartime closure it apparently tried internal combustion tractors first before settling on battery power. Women as tram conductors didn't happen until WW1 took away all the young men.

 

My guesses are:

 

1.  She is the photographer's girlfriend

2. (more likely) She was the best looking young lady to pass by when the photographer had the shot set up