Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway

History

Planning

Opening

Second World War

Post war

Smallest public railway in the world

The Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway Association

Stations

Stations currently open

• Hythe
• Burmarsh Road
• Dymchurch
• St Mary's Bay
• Warren Halt
• New Romney
• Romney Sands
• Dungeness

  Stations closed

• Prince of Wales Halt
• Botolph's Bridge Halt
• Golden Sands Halt
• Greatstone
• War Department Halt
• Lade
• The Pilot Inn
• Britannia Points Halt

  Stations proposed

• Hythe : Was first mentioned at the January 1928 meeting of Hythe Chamber of Commerce by Charles Duruz, a local nurseryman, who had contacted the railway company and who indicated they were quite willing to build this extension. Nothing came of the proposal however. In 1946 the possibility of extending the railway to Red Lion Square, Hythe was investigated again, but the East Kent Road Car Co Ltd agreed to extend their bus service from Folkestone to terminate at the original Hythe station and the extension idea was dropped.
• Sandling Junction: Suggested by objectors to the railway's original Light Railway Order in 1926 as more useful than a terminus on the outskirts of Hythe, but demonstrated by Greenly to be impracticable because of the difference in levels between Hythe and Sandling which would have necessitated severe gradients. The idea was revived in the late 1980s to connect with the main line at Sandling but again came to nothing, although detailed survey work had been undertaken.
• Sandling Park: A proposal was made for a station to serve this estate at Pedlinge on the abortive 1980s Sandling extension.
• Nickolls Quarry: A proposal for a station to serve a new housing development at the West Hythe site of Nickolls Quarry has been formally included in a planning application to Folkestone and Hythe District Council.

  Way and Works

Permanent Way

Way and works data

Signalling

Signal boxes

Locomotives

Locomotives in service

Locomotive names

• Nameplates are usually in upper case.
• No 1 was named Green Goddess after the 1921 stage play by William Archer, which Captain Howey had enjoyed.
• Nos 2 & 3 were to be called Northern Chief and Southern Chief and these nameplates were fitted at the works; however No 3's name was changed to Southern Maid.
• No 4 was sold in 1934 after construction because the proposed shunting and freight trains for it to work did not materialise. It ran in Belle Vue, Manchester, then Belfast with the new name Jean. The engine regained its original name on return to the RH&DR and restoration in the 1970s. It bears the colloquial name Basil the Bug in its role as mascot of the railway's children's supporter group.
• Nos 5 & 6 were to be called Man of Kent and Maid of Kent, but due to their high tractive effort the names Hercules and Samson, with their allusion of strength, were substituted during construction. A decade later, Henry Greenly, the designer, was involved in the construction of a locomotive on the nearby Saltwood Miniature Railway, and this engine took the Maid of Kent name.
• Nos 7 & 8 were constructed with an extra third cylinder for express passenger services and were given their names Typhoon and Hurricane for speed. The third cylinder was later removed from each due to unreliability. The locomotives were originally to carry the Samson and Hercules nameplates, but Howey gave the Mountain classes these names before the three-cylinder locomotives had arrived.
• Following a mishap when Howey was at the controls, No 8 was renamed Bluebottle between 1938 and 1946, apparently as a punishment.
• No 9 was originally Black Prince, but exchanged its name with No 10 in 1931. its name became Winston Churchill in 1948 for a tour of Canada, and remained so afterwards. At the same time the name Doctor Syn was transferred to No 10 and the name Black Prince fell into disuse.
• No 10 was originally Doctor Syn, but was renamed Black Prince following an accident in 1931. It regained its original name in 1949 to maintain the link with local history and legend.
• A brass name plate survives suggesting one of the Canadian outline locos was originally to have been called Black Devil. In the event this name was never used. George Barlow, the railway's operating manager, received a brass rubbing of this from an enquirer. When offered up to the cab side of Doctor Syn the bolt holes on the rubbing matched those in the loco's cab side perfectly.
• Some confusion exists over which locomotive actually carried the name Doctor Syn at any particular time. If the real Doctor Syn was out of service for any reason Howey often had its nameplates switched onto the other Canadian outline locomotive.
• No 11 took over the redundant Black Prince name upon transfer to the RH&DR in 1976, in place of its German name Fleißiges Lieschen. The name was chosen after a competition run by a local newspaper in which Spitfire scored heavily, but was considered rather undiplomatic given the loco's origins.
• No 12, originally named John Southland after the founder of the local secondary school in New Romney, has since been renamed after the railway's long serving managing director John Bernard Snell.
• No 13 was never assigned, probably due to superstition. Another engine of the same class as Nos 12 and 14 was built in the years between them and exported to the Shuzenji Romney Railway in Japan where it is No 3 in their fleet and carries the name John Southland II.
• No 14 ran nameless for 12 years until it was named after the line's founder, Captain Howey.
• PW1 carried the fleet number 4 for about ten years from 1961 as a replacement for the Rolls-Royce engine, which in turn had inherited the number from The Bug which had been sold. The engine was renumbered PW1 shortly before the return of The Bug, leaving fleet number 4 available again for its original holder.
• PW2 was constructed in 1949, mainly by the rebuilding and re-use of a former War Department locomotive which had been in service since 1929. Popularly known as The Scooter it has recently acquired nameplates showing this name.
• PW3 Redgauntlet was built c1964 by Michel Jacot and using a modified Austin 7 engine originally ran on paraffin. It ran trials at both the Ravenglass & Eskdale and Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch in the late 1960s and was acquired by the RHDR in the early 1970s.

  Locomotives withdrawn from service

Locomotives on site

Passenger traffic

Passenger services

Passenger vehicles

• The original Clayton Carriage & Wagon Co long frames unaltered in length
• The 1936 Robert Hudson frames extended to between and by inserting a new centre section between the swan-necks which carry the frame over the bogies
• A small batch of all welded long frames made by Gowers of Bedford in 1962 and unaltered in length
• The remaining bogie hopper wagons acquired secondhand from the Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway in 1928

• the Clayton Pullman ;
• a preserved 1960s twelve-seat hardboard bodied coach named Ruth;
• the Royal Saloon, a luxury version of a coach design introduced in 1934/5;
• and the licensed bar car named Gladys, an observation coach built on a 1936 Robert Hudson underframe extended to with a bar and 16 seats.

  Freight traffic

Freight services

Dungeness fish trade

Uncrushed shingle transport

Postal service

Parcels service

Freight vehicles

• the platelayers' mess coach 100P
• assorted tipper wagons
• secure tool trucks
• specialized platelaying vehicles incorporating concrete mixers, compressors, generators etc.
• flat wagons
• four-wheel wagons, both box vans and open trucks, including vehicles surviving from the fish trains
• tank wagons, used primarily for spraying weed killer on tracks.

  Armoured train

Proposed extension to Sandling

Tenders

• Green Goddess and Typhoon have Ashford 1947 tenders.
• Northern Chief and Southern Maid ran with 1983–4 built TMA tenders which are similar to, but longer, than the Greenly tenders and have a greater coal and water capacity. Northern Chief received a new tender tank as part of her overhaul in the winter of 2015. "Southern Maid" will return to traffic in 2016 with a new tender tank which will be a copy of her old tank.
• The Bug's tender was newly built in the mid-1970s as the original had been cut up during its time in a Belfast scrap yard.
• Hercules and Samson have, since 2009, been fitted with new tenders to a design resembling the Great Northern Railway 'high-sided' type.
• Hurricane is coupled to the re-bodied Paxman-built 1934 large tender, complete with mock corridor connector.
• Winston Churchill and Doctor Syn have re-bodied Gower tenders using parts from their original Vanderbilt tenders from 1931.
• Black Prince received a new tender in 2008, using bogies and other parts from its original one which, like the Greenly tenders, suffered from low water and coal capacity. As built, the loco and tender were fitted with air brakes which were replaced at the RH&DR with vacuum brakes for the loco driving wheels only; the original tender was not altered. The new tender, fitted with vacuum brakes, was tested at New Romney on 27 September 2008. On 4 October 2008, Black Prince completed a non-stop run from Hythe to Dungeness and back again, without the aid of another tender, a first for this locomotive.

  Greenly tenders

Ashford tenders

Tender shortage

Safety

Incidents

• 17 August 1927. 27-year-old platelayer Harold Adams was struck and fatally injured by a train whilst he was working on the track near the Prince of Wales Bridge.
• 2 June 1931. Locomotive No 10, then still named Doctor Syn, broke away from its tender, leaving its train near the Coastguard Cottages at Lade. The locomotive continued alone towards Dungeness where the combination of speed, curvature and cant deficiency caused it to derail on the loop and fall on its side. The locomotive was just over two weeks old at the time
• 10 May 1934. A train hauled by the Rolls-Royce locomotive was in collision with a large car at Bonnington Road level crossing in Dymchurch. The long-serving internal combustion locomotive was derailed and turned on its side, receiving significant damage and narrowly avoiding a fall into the dyke beside the road. The engine driver, Claude Webb, who was also Captain Howey's chauffeur, was slightly injured in the accident. A steam hauled engineers' train was coincidentally nearby at the time, and quickly able to render assistance. The damaged locomotive was sent to Robert Hudson Ltd in Leeds for repair, and returned to service later in the same year.
• 2 September 1935. Northern Chief was struck by a lorry on the level crossing with Bonnington Road, Dymchurch. The locomotive fell onto its right side coming to rest on the canal bridge. The tender stayed upright. Having sustained minimal damage, the loco was repaired quickly and returned to service. The lorry was a write off.
• 16 May 1946. A train hauled by locomotive No 3 Southern Maid was in collision with a lorry at Eastbridge Road level crossing in Dymchurch. The locomotive was derailed, and fell into the drainage canal running beside the road. The engine driver was badly injured but survived. The lorry driver was killed. The locomotive was recovered from the water by an army crane, but required extensive repairs.
• 22 April 1947. A train hauled by locomotive No 7 Typhoon was in collision with a large agricultural tractor at an occupation crossing near Prince of Wales, south of Hythe. The subsequent investigation found that the tractor had become stuck on the rails as it had smooth steel wheels, with no spikes, studs or tyres; the tractor driver made no attempt to contact the signalman or warn approaching trains. The engine was derailed and turned on its side, but was not badly damaged and returned to service later the same month. The tractor was split in two and destroyed.
• 16 July 1952. A head-on collision between two passenger trains occurred just north of Britannia Points. The station master at Dungeness, who was not in possession of the single line token, improperly issued the driver of the Up train with a single line ticket and verbally instructed him to take his train to Britannia Points and wait there to be shown the token by the driver of the approaching Down train before proceeding. The Up train over-ran Britannia Points causing the collision.
• 11 August 1952 The driver of a Down train on the Dungeness line, 21-year-old Jeffery Reddecliffe, was knocked out after striking his head on an overbridge. A passenger in the leading carriage, Leslie J. Ashman, saw this happen, left the carriage, clambered over the tender into the loco cab and stopped the train. Captain Howey later presented him with a sea fishing rod in gratitude for his bravery.
• 2 May 1954. A train driven by Bob Hobbs and hauled by locomotive No 5 Hercules was derailed at half mile curve, between New Romney and Greatstone. The cause of the incident was severe gale-force wind. The train was the 14.50 from Hythe to Dungeness, and the leading vehicle was a light guard's van, of a type nicknamed "jumping jacks", as their relatively light weight made for an uncomfortable ride for the guard. In the severe weather, as the train passed over the exposed embankment of half mile curve, the jumping jack guard's van was blown over, and smashed on the embankment. Fortunately the guard, Mavis Thomas, had decided to ride in another coach, and so avoided injury. As the van turned over in the wind, it also tipped the locomotive's high-sided tender, which in turn tipped the locomotive which ended on its side down the embankment. The engine driver, Bob Hobbs, who was a highly experienced driver, had been alerted to the sequence of events by noises behind him, and was able to jump from the footplate, sustaining only cuts and grazes. All "jumping jack" guard's vans on the railway were withdrawn from service and scrapped.
• 27 May 1963. A train hauled by locomotive No 5 Hercules from Hythe to New Romney was suffering from a faulty boiler pressure gauge which was showing erratic readings. The workshop staff at New Romney had recalibrated the safety valves that morning so that they lifted at what the gauge showed as 180 lb sq in. In fact the gauge was reading high. After this the boiler was unable to maintain sufficient pressure to keep the train's vacuum brakes off and they were dragging. The train stalled at Palmarsh, but the driver managed to get it moving again, but at only. The train was struck from behind by the following service train, hauled by locomotive No 7 Typhoon which had been allowed into the section by the Hythe signalman before he had received line clear from Dymchurch. A number of carriages in both trains were derailed and there were a number of injuries. The incident was reported in The Railway Magazine together with two photographs taken in the aftermath of the crash.
• 9 August 1967. A train hauled by locomotive No 5 Hercules driven by Jim Brodie over-ran the terminus at Hythe, resulting in a number of minor injuries. It is thought the engine driver was struck on the head at Prince of Wales Bridge, and lost consciousness, allowing the train to continue unchecked for the remaining into Hythe station where it crashed through buffer stops and continued into the station car park, coming to rest before reaching the main road. The driver could not subsequently recall whether his head had struck the stonework of the bridge, or whether he had been hit by an object thrown from the bridge. The incident received national newspaper coverage.
• 25 July 1968. A heavy double headed train of 23 coaches, hauled by locomotives No 7 Typhoon and No 9 Winston Churchill, was struck by a car at Botolph's Bridge Road. The car was destroyed, but damage to the train was limited to the motion of locomotive No 9. The damaged engine was recovered to New Romney, and the other locomotive continued alone with the entire 23 coach train.
• April 1970. A train hauled by locomotive No 2 Northern Chief was in collision with a car at Botolph's Bridge level crossing, south of Palmarsh. The swift action of the engine driver, Cyril Carter, resulted in a low impact collision, and nobody was injured. The locomotive was slightly damaged. The car, an Austin 1100, was damaged, but not destroyed.
• August 1972. A passenger train was in collision with a circus caravan at St Mary's Road level crossing, Dymchurch. Nobody was injured.
• 6 August 1973. A train hauled by locomotive No 6 Samson was in collision with a stolen motor car at St Mary's Road level crossing, a short distance south of Dymchurch station. The locomotive was badly damaged and the engine driver, Peter Hobson, was killed. The locomotive was sent to Leeds for repair, returning to service the following year. Although not the first level crossing incident on the railway, it was the first to prove fatal to the engine driver, and initiated discussion which led to the gradual introduction of warning lights at all the railway's level crossings.
• August 1974. A train driven by driver George Barlow was in collision with a car at Botolph's Bridge Road. There were no injuries, but the car was badly damaged, and the front carriage of the train was slightly damaged.
• 28 August 1975. A train hauled by locomotive No 7 Typhoon was in collision with a car on St Mary's Road level crossing, Dymchurch. The car, a Ford Corsair, was destroyed, and one of its occupants had to be cut free, having been trapped by her feet, but was not seriously injured. The train driver, Cyril Carter, was uninjured. The occupants of the car were a local young brother and sister, Roger Piper and Belinda Piper driving to the fish and chip shop, and witnesses reported that they had seen the approaching train but tried to race it to the level crossing. Their father John Piper was quoted in the local newspaper as having said, "Funnily enough, it is nearly always someone local who is involved", referring to accidents on Dymchurch's level crossings.
• 11 May 1993. A train propelled by locomotive No 12 John Southland driven by Stuart Barratt was in collision with a white van at Eastbridge Road level crossing, Dymchurch. The train was an empty coaching stock working which had earlier operated the daily school service for pupils returning home from New Romney. The locomotive was propelling from the rear, and the leading vehicle was Driving Van Trailer No 105. The transit van and the railway DVT both fell into the dyke beside the road. The van driver was uninjured. The Guard, Simon Oldfield, who was travelling in the DVT, was briefly trapped under water, but was able to free himself and swim to safety. The DVT was heavily damaged and had to be completely rebuilt. During this rebuild it was adapted to become the railway's first wheelchair accessible coach. Two other passenger coaches, 804 and 807, were also seriously damaged in the incident. The van driver admitted fault but claimed that his brakes had failed. The subsequent police investigation revealed that the brakes had operated correctly, but that the van driver had vainly hoped to beat the train to the crossing. Police also found that the van's tyres were bald, and that it had no current road tax. A large crane recovered both vehicles from the water.
• 3 August 2003. A train hauled by locomotive No 5 Hercules was in collision with a car at Burmarsh Road level crossing protected by flashing warning lights. The engine driver, 31-year-old Kevin Crouch, died at the scene, and some passengers were treated for shock and minor injuries. The locomotive was seriously damaged and underwent extensive repairs, returning to service in 2005. The female car driver, 22-year-old Marie Scrace whose baby was a passenger in the vehicle, had ignored or failed to see the warning lights. Scrace and her baby were taken to hospital, but were not badly hurt. The railway and the Health and Safety Executive instigated an investigation, and the woman was arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving. Although acquitted, she was found guilty of the lesser charge of careless driving.
• 10 July 2005. A train hauled by locomotive No 8 Hurricane was in collision with a car at Battery Road level crossing near Dungeness. The driver of the train, Suzanne Martin, was killed. Several passengers were treated for shock. The locomotive was seriously damaged and underwent extensive repairs, returning to service the following year. The car driver, 20-year-old Richard Isted, had ignored or failed to see warning lights and was arrested at the scene by Kent Police. He subsequently appeared in court charged with driving without due care and attention, to which he pleaded guilty.
• 10 September 2016. A passenger train was struck by a tractor pulling a heavily laden hay trailer, on occupation crossing number 10. Locomotive No 1 Green Goddess and its tender were both derailed and thrown onto their sides. The leading coach was also derailed but remained upright. The train driver and four passengers sustained minor injuries.
• 28 August 2019 Two passenger trains ended up on the single track line between New Romney and Romney Sands stations. The train stopped apart. An investigation by the Rail Accident Investigation Branch found that the cause was a misunderstanding by the trainee stationmaster at Romney Sands who issued a ticket without having the token in his possession, and the acceptance of the ticket by the driver of the train from Romney Sands without having seen the token for the section. Comparisons were made with the Abermule train collision in 1921.

  Level crossings

Ownership and operation

Ownership

Directors

Operation