Hythe Pier Railway prepares for its centenary celebrations
JULY 23 will see the Hythe Pier Railway celebrate a century of operation under the banner of The Year of the Train.
The 2ft gauge line, powered by an electrified third rail, was built to carry passengers to Hythe’s Grade II-listed Victorian pier to catch the Southampton Water ferryboats.
The three locomotives, or tractor units, were built in 1917 by Brush Electrical Engineering Co. Ltd, of Loughborough, for use at the Avonmouth Mustard Gas Factory, where they were operated at 100 volts from Ironclad Exide batteries.
Thomas Percy, the owner of Hythe Pier and Ferry, had seen them listed for sale in a catalogue of redundant plant issued by the War Office after the end of World War One and eventually bought them for £787 and 10 shillings with a spare set of batteries included.
They arrived at Hythe in June 1920, with track-laying starting later that year and overseen by London-based railway engineer Gerald Yorke.
The locomotives were converted for a direct current, picked up by a contact shoe from the live rail supplied by a purpose-built generating station in what is now the workshop at the pier entrance. The first successful trial run along the pier by two of the locomotives coupled in tandem took place at the end of February 1922.
100 years of history
In October 1921, an order for two carriages was placed with the Drewry Car Company of London. Each designed to carry 18 passengers in three compartments, they were built by Baguley Cars Ltd, of Burton upon Trent, as part of a working agreement between the two companies. The first arrived in Hythe at the end of May 1922 and the second followed a month later. Without ceremony, the pier railway began operations at the end of July 1922.
It was so successful that two more carriages were ordered from the same source in March 1923. They were driving carriages with controls very similar to the Brush locomotives. Mr Percy demanded at least one be delivered before the Bank Holiday at the end of May. Earlier, in 1909, sunken tracks had been laid on the northern side of the pier for a tramway comprising of two handpropelled luggage trucks, which occasionally carried people.
These trucks were converted for use on the new railway. One was shunted off the pier and into the water in August 1922 following a breakdown of communications among the driving crew (there is no record of its recovery), while the second has been used on the line to this day.
However, incidents have been very few, with just a handful of derailments and hitting of the buffers.
In May 1944, King George VI was conveyed along the pier by the train while on a visit to view local D-Day preparations; a marker is positioned on his seat.
“The Brush locomotives have twice escaped replacement moves.”
Saved from closure
During the early evening of November 1, 2003, a pier train packed with Southampton FC supporters returning from a match had passed the point when the suction dredger Donald Redford struck the pier just a minute or so later, leaving a 50ft break in the structure. The railway was unable to operate for more than two months until repairs were carried out, and the ferry service could resume from the pier head.
During the early years of this century, Hythe Pier and its railway became neglected and at the end of 2016, the owners – who also owned the Hythe Ferry – announced it was unlikely it would be able to continue operating.
The local community mounted a rescue operation and launched a campaign that eventually saw the arrival of new owners and the setting up of the Hythe Pier Heritage Association. Blue Funnel Ferries set about rebuilding confidence in a ferry service from Hythe to Southampton, and the association began raising funds to restore Hythe Pier and the railway.
Despite Covid-19 pandemic restrictions having hampered progress, the first of the original carriages was restored and returned to the rails, along with an overhauled locomotive, in May 2021. The second of the original pair was subsequently withdrawn and is undergoing a similar restoration by the association in the Hythe Ferry workshop, in conjunction with volunteers from the Hythe Shed (at the pier) and Blue Funnel engineers.
The Brush locomotives have twice escaped replacement moves. During the mid-1930s, Gerald Yorke suggested that they should be scrapped and replaced by driving carriages. In 2003, a plan drawn up to replace the two surviving locomotives with modern movers was shelved due to the Donald Redford incident.
However, they are still very much with us and all set to play a part of Hythe’s The Year of the Train in 2022.