Eastbourne Tramway

(Selection of photos and postcards sourced via the Internet)

FACEBOOK - SUSSEX TRANSPORT HISTORY

A line I sadly missed despite living in Sussex from 1957 to 1990 was the Eastbourne Tramway. This was a two foot gauge miniature tramway that operated between the Crumbles and Princes Park in Eastbourne. It was built and operated by Claude Lane, opening in 1956 and running until 1969 when the whole operation was moved to Seaton in Devon with the trams being regauged to 2 feet 9 inches.

Videos  https://youtu.be/1SYIQTGmTHM

1959 https://youtu.be/2CCcVx_cXq8

The other Kent and East Sussex

Eridge 2.1.1973

1317 at Groombridge 4.7.1977

Tunbridge Wells West 31.8.1988 

(All pics copyright Steve Sainsbury/The Rail Thing)

REVERSING BEECHING FACEBOOK

By the mid 1980s railway closures were a fading memory, but in a last burst of misplaced nostalgia there was one final closure down south, when the useful (but not as useful as it will be!) route from Tunbridge Wells to Eridge was closed. The excuse was the expense of remodelling the junction at Tunbridge Wells when the main Hastings line was electrified ... and so another part of the network of lines in this area had to close.

The line was quickly resurrected as the Spa Valley Railway, but a few tourist trains hardly compensates for the loss of a seven day a week service. And that important link at Tunbridge Wells is STILL devoid of track.

I got to travel on this line a few times and it was a nice rural route. I must admit that by the 70s a lot of the line's purpose had gone. Once it had provided a gateway to lines to Brighton, Lewes, Eastbourne, East Grinstead and Three Bridges, offering a huge range of trips and keeping a good bit of traffic off the roads. It also made commuting an easy proposition in a whole swathe of this region. By 1985 it really just provided a link between Tunbridge Wells and Uckfield (Lewes no longer being an option) and also allowed people in the West of Tunbridge Wells to access the Network (and London) via the large and gothic station at Tunbridge Wells West.

So the line was closed, the last real closure of any substance in southern England and possibly the whole country. A final fling for Beeching and his empty headed accountant hordes.

But things are stirring. As mentioned above a good stretch of the line is now a tourist railway, but the Lewes-Uckfield line is on the cusp of reopening, there are murmurs about the useful 'Cuckoo' line to Eastbourne and the East Grinstead line now has a group working with banks and others in the area to reopen this useful link (at least for a few more decades) to Gatwick Airport and, more importantly, the Brighton main line. East Grinstead of course has had it's other line (to Sheffield Park) reopened last year, and the Bluebell have a 25 year and beyond plan that mentions a possible return to Lewes. The whole area will be transformed for rail.

Withyham 4.7.1977

Still in deep sleep the useful route from Eridge via East Grinstead to Three Bridges is beginning to stir again.

East Grinstead. 1977

(All 1.8.1977)

East Grinstead will soon have trains to the south again once the Bluebell Railway finally gets through Imberhorne. Back in 1977 the dream of steam returning to East Grinstead would have been an impossible one, which just shows how much progress has been made in the last 34 years!

Of course back in 1977 rail was on the defensive, you couldn't even be sure that East Grinstead would survive, beoing on a dieselised and truncated route. Once East Grinstead had lines to all four points of the compass, by 1977 you could only go north. Soon you'll be able to head south again, and no doubt eventually east and west as well as the Three Bridges to Eridge route returns to the map. The 1967 closure of the route which gave access to Gatwick Airport and Tunbridge Wells was particularly short sighted!

East Grinstead originally had both an upper and lower station - the lower station is the one that survives. Hopefully future developments will allow all trains to use this lower station to make interchange easier.

Once trains start to operate southwards of East Grinstead how long before the pressure builds on the Bluebell to restore the Sheffield Park to Lewes line? This would give the Bluebell a genuine purpose again as well as allow it to tap into tourist traffic from Brighton and Eastbourne. Okay, so today a lot of people visit the line by car or bus, but these options will disappear altogether over the next few decades. And with the Bluebell also owning the Ardingly route they are setting themselves up nicely for THREE eventual Network connections, surely assuring them of a future role in an energy constrained world?