Exciting Expedition IN Eastbourne (1)

fbb mumbles about the Crumbles!
It was a vast shingle bank between Eastbourne and Pevensey Bay.

Note the single track railway line, a freight siding that was used to collect shingle for use as ballast on the railway.

In 1862 from just north of Eastbourne Station a siding was laid extending for about three miles to a desolate area of foreshore known as the Crumbles.

Its purpose was for transporting shingle ballast from the beach for use on the LB&SCR's permanent way. With the formation of the Southern Railway, angular granite ballast was used and the far end of the line had closed by 1932.

The houses would be on Queens Crescent, the D shaped road on the map above ...

... but the line continued much further. The map fron the 1920s/1930s shows no housing but suggests that the ponds might well have been created by the excavation.

We shall meet the remnants of this line later in the expedition.

The second bit of railway infrastructure arrived in 1954. This was Claude Lane's miniature tranway, now, of course, one of the delights of fbb's current home at Seaton.

This ran from opposite the Princes Park gates ...

... along what was the cul-de-sac end of Royal Parade.

fbb was searching for a good map of the tramway when he came across this one:-

It turns out to be one the old man drew for a blog way back in 2011!

It shows the outer terminus on Wartling Road, by then a mere track into the shingles area.

If you look very closely centre left you can see a grey shape on the horizon. This is the Martello Tower at Langney Point.

Martello towers are gun towers constructed to defend the vulnerable south eastern coast of England against the threat of ship-borne invasion by Napoleonic forces. Built as a systematic chain of defense in two phases, between 1805 and 1810 along the coasts of East Sussex and Kent, and between 1808 and 1812 along the coasts of Essex and Suffolk, the design of Martello towers was based on a fortified tower at Mortella Point in Corsica which had put up a prolonged resistance to British forces in 1793. The towers take the form of compact, free-standing circular buildings on three levels built of rendered brick. The towers of the south coast were numbered 1-74 from east to west, 

The tower at Langney Point is number 66.

Wartling Road is now fully built up and the old lane renamed Prince William Parade.

The tram terminus was somewhere near the present car park for the Sovereign Centre leisure complex.

It was the planned development of the Crumbles that led to the tram being ousted from Eastbourne, whose loss is Seaton's gain!

This blog will continue tomorrow, but as promised, we need to pause and take a quick trip to Bolton.

First Bus Bolton; Rotala's Bolt-on!

The rumour that circulated earlier in the year was that First Bus was selling off its "unprofitable" Manchester operations to "several operators". In the end only (!) the sale of Queens Road depot and the Central Manchester routes was announced; this to GoAhead.

But there are no diesel fumes without fire, as the old adage goes, and bus watchers have been waiting for the next parcel of the operation to be passed on to some other brave (reckless?) buyer.

The announcement came formally from seller and buyer yesterday 27th June.

The Bolton depot and business goes to Rotala (of Diamond and Preston Bus fame). A detailed press release has been issued by Rotala and fbb will simply quote much of the information therein rather than trying to paraphrase.

The Headline

The Detail

And some financial stuff

It has long been know in and around the industry that Rotala has designs on becoming a major player. Attempts to become more dominant in the Bristol area failed when they were soundly thrashed by First and withdrew from the area completely. Now the poacher has turned gamekeeper and Rotala will have a more significant presence in the North West.

How all this fits in with First's new strategy to hive off or sell the bus division is not yet clear.

And there is still some First left in Manchester viz Oldham depot and its operations.

What will happen to the "highly successful" Leigh Busway services?

Clearly there is much more to happen.

 Next Eastbourne blog : Saturday 29th June 

No More Haltings at the Saltings

St Ives (in Cornwall) is a busy, busy place. Even out of season plenty of folk want to visit this quaint seaside resort. The streets are thin  ...

Thin street, lots of people and motor cars do not make good bedfellows.

There are car parks, there is park and ride but a sensible tourist will not take their motor into the town.

In 1978 British Railways** provided one useful answer; let the train take the strain.

A brand new station was built called Lelant Saltings (Saltings? A place where they make - or used to make - salt.) just out from the junction with the main line at St Erth. It was a fairly basic affair with just one platform and not much else.

But there was plenty of parking!

And, in the peak holiday periods, plenty of people using it.

The branch line is short (ten minutes ride) but very picturesque, running along the banks of the Hayle River estuary ...

... and well worth the ride in its own right.

But Lelant Saltings is no more.

There is just one train in each direction which now stops there. "Why?" you may ask. Seemples. Although nobody would want to get on or off,  it is cheaper to make the minimalist stops than to go through the protracted procedures for formal closure.

And if they could get planning permission for houses on the car park (upper right in Google view below) ...

... the bean counters at Great Western Railway might think it worth re-improving the service.

Park and Ride is now at St Erth Station (but NOT quite at st Erth!).

Here is what was planned ...

... and according to Vectensian Alan, who was holidaying in Cornwall last week, it is all super and smashing. Photos of the new set-up are sparse on-line but Alan snapped a general view and thus you will get some idea of the improvement over the "basic" set-up at Lelant Saltings.

A plan may help explain it all.

The white slash across the page is railway tracks and land. The new bus pull in etc is to the north of the station building and the fan-shaped car park to the south. Google Streetview has not caught up!

Spot the station footbridge in the middle distance! Work had just started when the Streetview car ambled past on the other side of the tracks.

St Erth station has a nice little caff ...

... well stocked with yummy stuff.

No such delights are available at the St Ives terminus which has all but vanished compared with its old self. The curved platform and its associated trackwork ...

... have gone as have the station buildings. This, all bulldozed, is now an enlarged car park (usually full!).

The station (just a platform) can be glimpsed at the very far end of the parking area.

But Alan was well impressed with the Park and Ride, the views along the line and the good value fares.

So enjoyable did they (Alan and his Mrs) find the travel experience (and they are very committed motorists!), they went back later in the day and used their day rover for a second trip.

Definitely an fbb recommended ride.

**British Railways - remember when the Government ran the railways and admitted it. Unlike today when the Government still runs the railways but pretends that they are privatised!

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STOP PRESS

Rotala to Buy First's Bolton Depot and Business

more tomorrow

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 Next Eastbourne bus blog : Friday 28th June 

Entertaining (?) Expedition to Eastbourne

One of fbb's favourite Bible stories concerns the Old Testament "judge", Deborah by name. The narrative is too lengthy and involved to reproduce here, but a "baddie" (Sisera) was attacking God's people and young Debs (a fearsome l;ass, as it turned out) was seeking some defence against an unstoppable onslaught of (possibly exaggerated? but certainly "a lot!") 10000 iron chariots. The Israelites only had hand weapons - and God!

The defeat of Sisera was surprisingly swift.

It rained.

The chariots sank in the mud, the soldiers fled and Sisera was pursued and disposed of in a particularly gruesome manner; taken down, not by a peg or two, but by one rammed home with a mallet. (Feel free to read it yourself: Judges Chapters 4 and 5).

Rain, even back then, was the enemy of technology!

fbb and his Mrs were off to visit No 3 son who had bought two day's worth of "access all areas" tickets for Eastbourne tennis. Getting from Seaton to Eastbourne was simple; by car to Axminster Station then ...

All was going well and on time until a few blips after Woking. Then the train slowed down and remained crawling all the way to Clapham Junction. The guard apologised for the delay, caused by a passenger being taken ill at Clapham. 1153 came and went meaning that fbb emailed No 3 son warning him that a 30 minute delayed arrival was inevitable.

Just to be sure, your careful author checked on line and discovered a problem.

It rained.

Because of the wonderful Thameslink, disruption would be widespread. Whilst local press pictures did not seem too bad ...

... there were reports that the track was flooded. Apparently that is not good news when you are trying to pick up 750 volts from a conductor rail. Tweeters were far from 'appy.

Southern got the pumps out ...

... but by them the rain had done its damage. Trains were in the wrong place, staff were in the wrong place and, generally, chaos ensued.

So it was that the fbbs arrived a good six minutes after their connection was scheduled to lave Clapham Junction. But it was "delayed". Trains were running out of order from busy platform 13 ...

... with nothing on time, although a few were close. Eventually the 1153 was announced as 24 minutes late. Obviously the fbb's hopped aboard.

You can gauge some of the ensuing disruption by looking at the service pattern of Eastbourne trains.

Note E (for the 1153 from Clapham Junction, 1146 from Waterloo) explains that the train splits at Haywards Heath with the rear four coach unit trundling off the Hove and Littlehampton, trains which appear on a separate timetable.

Notice that the 1223 (1216 from Waterloo) terminates at Eastbourne but offers a natty change at Hampden Park (arrive 1341; cross the line and depart 1348) into the preceding Brighton train for through passengers to Hastings and Ore.

But the fbb's train was 30 minutes late by the time the split was made.

You might have expected it to adopt the stops of the 1223 but Wivelsfield was passed at speed and at Plumpton it was announced that the train would terminate at Eastbourne. It took another 15 minutes for "instant" technology to catch up!

Quite why an extra stop was added at Glynde was neither explained nor, more importantly, announced. Nobody boarded or alighted! Neither, for that matter, was any clue given as to how the "cancelled" passengers might continue to Hastings and Ore.

In fact something was held back and was waiting for them at Eastbourne.

The fbbs were 31 minutes late arriving which, considering the level of disruption earlier in the day, was not all all bad.

But all because of a bit of rain? They kept going in the good old days ...

... but perhaps not always!

But it does seem strange that, despite advances in civil engineering, track laying and drainage standards, a few inches of heavy rain should spread disruption so far and so completely.

Could Southern have done better?

Was there too much misplaced "health and safety" and not enough concern for passengers?

Many frustrated passengers thought so.

Meanwhile in Sheffield

Readers may wonder how deep the flood had to be to close the top deck of the Tinsley Viaduct!

Alas the Fourth Estate was over-egging the crisis just a tad.

Poor or badly maintained drainage? Of simply too much rain?

Big Board Bust-up Beaten
Yesterday afternoon was the Extraordinary General Meeting of First Group - called by major shareholder Coast Capital aiming to "take over" the board. The attempt was roundly defeated but the chairman will stand down.

The Guardian article (quoted above) went on to suggest that First are "rumoured" to be about to win the West Coast rail franchise.

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Please Note : The "Park and Ride" blog, planned for today, is postponed until tomorrow.

While many are reading this blog, fbb himself is on safari from Eastbourne (via Brighton and Hove buses) to Brighton and on by train to Ford. Such fun! Mrs fbb was hoping to be watching Andy Murray live for real, but he and his doubles partner were soundly defeated yesterday afternoon.

 Postponed Park and Ride blog : Wednesday 27th June