Romney celebrates its 95th with La’al Ratty visitors
CROWDS flocked to the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway as it celebrated its 95th anniversary on May 14/15 with an intensive gala service that saw trains continue throughout the night.
Known as ‘Kent’s Mainline in Miniature’, the 13 ½-mile line that runs from the Cinque Port town of Hythe to the national nature reserve at Dungeness was the culmination of a joint dream between racing drivers Count Louis Zborowski and Captain JEP Howey – who had previously tried to buy the Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway line. The count was killed in a racing accident in Monza at the Italian Gran Prix on October 19, 1924 before the new line began construction, but he had already ordered two Pacifics – Nos. 1 Green Goddess and 2 Northern Chief – from leading model engineer Henry Greenly.
The line was officially opened on July 16, 1927, and the extension to Dungeness came in 1928.
In 1973, Sir William McAlpine headed a consortium that saved the line with substantial investment after years of neglect, upholding a high standard of customer service.
The celebratory weekend saw every available home steam locomotive in service, with double, triple, and even some quadruple-headed services run. In addition, resident diesel No.12 J.B. Snell was rostered.
The fleet was also boosted by the visit of steam locomotives River
Irt (the oldest working 15in gauge locomotive in the world, which was also marking 95 years since it was rebuilt from a tank engine into an 0-8-2), Katie, which was built in 1896 by engineer Sir Arthur Heywood for the Duke of Westminster’s private Eaton Hall Railway, and diesel No. 15 Shelagh of Eskdale, all from the RER, with the latter currently on longterm loan to the RHDR.
As the locomotives were taken to the shed on the Sunday evening, the opportunity was taken to pause five significant ones together. Nos. 4, 15, and River Irt, along with Nos. 6 Samson and 11 Black Prince, were all engines that once ran on the temporary railway at the International Garden Festival in Liverpool in 1984. The reunion at the
gala was the first time in 38 years that they had all been together in one place.
Specially constructed
The international horticultural exposition was held between May 2 and October 14, 1984, on a 950,000sqm site south of Herculaneum Dock overlooking the River Mersey, with the specially constructed railway network transporting visitors to stations at key locations across the event.
The engines used were supplied as they were deemed to be ‘spare’ at their home lines at that time. RHDR loaned some additional carriages to bolster the fleet bought specially for the event, while RER also supplied a 1976-built DMU, Silver Jubilee, although this was converted to loco-hauled stock after it fell out of use in 2003.
The timetable commenced at 9.30am at New Romney on May 14 with one of the line’s famous nonstop parallel runs to Hythe. Service concluded at 6.45pm on the Sunday with another of these showpieces, with each of the two trains being headed by four steam locomotives each. Between these were plenty of services, with several running non-stop between Hythe and New Romney, with one continuing to Dungeness and then back to Hythe. Service continued to run overnight and into Sunday morning, too. A small number of demonstration freight trains were also run.
Meanwhile, visiting Katie and resident No.4 The Bug ran top-andtailed shuttles out of New Romney as far as Occupation Crossing 20, approximately five minutes north of the station.
“Numbers for Saturday far exceeded our expectations and passengers were patient when locating a seat on their favourite departure,” said spokesperson Jade Ashton.
“Overnight running has not been achieved since our 90th anniversary in 2017 and will likely not happen again until our centenary!”