This delightful pair of images from 1905 shows the Empire State Express running through Syracuse, New York.
This was much less common in Britain, where strict legislation from the earliest days required railway lines to be segregated and securely fenced-off. But there were one or two exceptions in specific circumstances, and Weymouth was one:
A ferry port in south-west England at the far end of the London & South Western's express track from London Waterloo via Southampton and Bournemouth, Weymouth harbour was reached from the station via street running.
The 3rd rail electric system stopped long before this stretch, of course, and the electric multiple units were hauled by compact but powerful Class 33 diesel-electric locomotives.
In these delightful sequences, taken I imagine sometime in the late 1970s or early 80s, we see the train, preceded by a pair of British Rail staff clearing the way, proceeding through the streets of the town.
There wasn't much room, and the train's trackway was protected by hashed yellow lines to warn car drivers to stay clear.
This Harbour Tramway opened in 1865 (built by the Great Western Railway) and was still in operation as recently as 1987, connecting to ferry services to the Continental mainland.
There is something very strange about the vast bulk of a mainline train inching its way through the streets.
Obviously it moved at a stately walking pace, rather than zooming through at tram-like speeds.
With the decline in foot passenger traffic on cross-Channel ferry services the service ceased to be economic (freight traffic had disappeared about a decade earlier).
Sometimes the train would encounter a car which had illegally parked, blocking its way (this rather nifty Rover SD1 is the offender here):
The train was authorised to shove the offender out of the way, irrespective of the damage it did to the car. Which must have been rather startling to return to.
7 comments:
I most likely rode that train through Syracuse on the way to my grandparents, but I was quite young and don't remember exactly.
How fascinating!
I didn't know there ever was any street running in the UK. I like the photos. A very odd juxtaposition between the pub on one side, the harbor on the other and the train in the middle! I wonder how it affected the house prices, with the regular possibility of stepping out of your front door to be confronted by a train?
I see that the photos are two separate workings. The first loco has working headcodes and no jumper cables or buffer plates. The second one has oblong panels and MW cables. That set would have been taken in August 1984 or later, as we can see a B registration car in the shot there.
Are the tracks at Weymouth still there or have they been removed?
I had an aunt who lived in Weymouth and I used to go to stay in the late 1940s and loved to see the trains on the way to the harbour - though slightly scared too. In those days they were all steam hauled of course. As I recall, the ferries from Weymouth only served Jersey and Guernsey, not continental ports.
I think the link to the continental mainland came rather later than the 1940s. I have a map which appears to show a connection to St Malo, but I also have a vague (and possibly faulty) recollection of ferries to Santander. All corrections gratefully received!
The tracks are still (just) there, and there were suggestions they should be reinstated to allow high volumes of people to move to the Olympic sailing events that are being held in the town in 2012. But the Council has just bought the land from Network Rail and I understand they are intending to dismantle the tramway. Which would be a pity.
I think the photosequence actually shows three separate workings rather than just two, and at least one of them is rather earlier than the the 1984+ date of the other.
In the 1970s I lived near Weymouth for a couple of years, and vividly recall the 'street working' there. It didn't seem to pose any special problems, moving as you say at walking pace.
Where else in UK did this take place? I can't think of any others. Presumably they were short stretches where access to something like a port or jetty was needed?
Dredging my memory (so there's a better-than-average chance I've got this wrong), I seem to recall there was a stretch of street working in Farnborough and another in Preston. And Southampton had some between the Royal Pier and docks (plus the ocean liner trains crossed the very wide Canute Road at a very long diagonal, which was, I recall, ungated; but that's a bit of a cheat).
I have an even hazier recollection that Glasgow might have had some heavy rail freight traffic on its tram system, but am prepared to concede that may just be a deluded recovered memory.
There were, of course, light railways that did this sort of thing: Wisbech & Upwell is perhaps the most famous, but Yarmouth and Lowestoft certainly ran freight trains on the streets.
Lots of municipal tram systems would have had the odd freight hauled over them, for supplies as well as the expected engineering trains.
3 workings, hmm you may be right.
Even the earliest pic would be post 1980 though.
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