Westerham Valley Railway Association (failed Heritage Line attempt)

Where is it now?

 

I will, as soon as I have a date. The publisher will be Noodle Books, now owned by Crecy Publishing.

 

The controversy about the closure was that the Transport Users Consultative Committees finally recommended that the line be retained but Ernest Marples, for the first time ever, overturned that recommendation and decided that the line should be closed. That much is well known. Most files relating to 1960s railway closures have been thrown out but, fortunately, those relating to Westerham closure survive and give us a unique look at how one of the Beeching-era closures really happened. Forget all the myths and legends. (Yes, I know, Westerham wasn't in the Beeching Report as it had closed before 1963 but Beeching was chairman of the BTC when the line closed.) The book also shows how BR itself thought that the line would be retained and planned to modernise it. The fiasco of the Westerham closure - and the time it took - led directly to changes in the closure procedure that made it possible for hundreds of lines to be closed under Beeching.

According to myth, the failure of the Westerham preservation scheme came about because the Ministry of Transport wanted to use the trackbed for the South Orbital Road, now known as the M25. In fact, as this book shows, the Ministry couldn't even make up its mind if the road was going anywhere near Westerham. The real reasons for the failure of the preservation scheme are far more complex. To give you a taster, BR wanted to put a stop to all preservation schemes. If they'd had their way, the Bluebell might be today's only standard gauge heritage railway and even that was in doubt. BR definitely wasn't going to allow any schemes that wanted to run a genuine public service and nor was the Ministry of Transport. The book shows how BR and the Ministry worked together to deliberately block the Westerham scheme - and it wasn't the only one. Preservationists at that time had no idea what they were up against.

 

No, the Westerham line proposed to use three ex-GWR railcars to run its proposed weekday commuter service but none were ever bought for the line. However, railcar no. 20, was bought by the K&ESR in 1966 and was delivered to Robertsbridge. This is probably the vehicle in the picture you saw. The former Blackpool tram had nothing to do with either Westerham or the K&ESR. It was bought for the Hayling line and was kept in Havant goods yard for several years.

 

Wikipedia says: After closure, an attempt was made to re-open the line, using a former Blackpool Marton Vambac single deck tram, no. 11. The tram was stored in the goods yard at Havant, and later, on Hayling Island itself. With no support from the local authorities forthcoming, the re-opening venture came to nothing and the tram never ran on the line. Unlike the line, however, the tram survived, and is currently preserved, in running order, at the East Anglia Transport Museum.

 

Just for a moment I thought this thread was going to have been started by someone proposing a scheme to reopen the Westerham branch, claiming that all the obstacles to the original scheme were now miraculously removed, that there would be plenty of room between the hard shoulder/inside lane of the M25 and the boundary fence... and quoting hilariously implausible figures about how much traffic would be taken off the motorway

Fortunately it's something rather more interesting...

While that stretch of the M25 served me well (albeit occasionally very slowly) throughout the 1990s, I often mused while driving it that it was a shame that the scheme was stillborn. It was a nice stretch of countryside in the lee of the Downs before the motorway was slapped across it. That said, I wouldn't fancy driving the A25 now if it wasn't there...

 

Was the railcar delivered to Robertsbridge by rail then? Surely an ex GWR Railcar would be out of guage for the Hastings line?

Or did they find some way to make it fit?

David R

 

I seem to remember an article on this that the railcar was jacked over to lean away from the tunnel walls. I have searched my records and can find no data. Can you put me out of my misery and confirm I'm not inventing stories?

 

OK - I can now answer my own question - it travelled from Reading to Tonbridge West Yard in early 1966 where (as you correctly state) it was apparantly tilted using brake blocks and then hauled to Robertsbride one Sunday

David R

 

Hello,
GWR 20 DCR:


http://www.kesr.org.uk/stock-register/diesel-locomotives/no-20-great-western-railcar

Nick

 

Interesting to learn how the railcar was taken through Hastings line tunnels. However there is rather a lot of typical gricer's chunter of the "we wuz robbed, sign this petition" kind in other postings. I recall one early (inevitably failed) scheme which was going to make a fortune from the carriage of cabbages!

Railway preservation has been a painful process of coming to terms with reality. It has not finished yet alas.

PH

 

Urgh....anyway

How is the restoration of No. 20 going? Last I heard it was still a wooden climbing frame

 

I have a vague recolection of reading in the KESR mag that the door handles were removed as well

 

In this case, possibly. The excellent Disused Stations site has just been updated with material on the branch (http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/w/westerham/index.shtml and links), which suggest, shall we say, a certain naivity on the part of the scheme. However, especially at this early (pre Beeching, remember) stage, the role of BR, the Department of Transport, and the local authorities all also come into play, and I do wonder if the preservationists were playing with loaded dice. It will be interesting to read @W14's book to try to understand the interactions in greater depth.

 

As far as W20W is concerned, it needed a total rebuild (including all the mechanical bits) and is making slow but steady progress with a small but dedicated group of supporters.