Barnacle Bill Railway

I watched an Alec Guiness film from the late 50s at the weekend called "Barnacle Bill" in which he plays an RN captain who suffers terrible seasickness and can't go to see, so buys a pier and registers it as a ship (for reasons that become apparent in the film.

There is what looks to be about a 10-1/4" gauge line running along the pier with a a "Royal Scot" or similar loco running on it - can anyoner tell me more about the railway and pier?

 

Hunstanton pier according to the IMDB website.

This website covers the pier and railway:
http://www.hunstantonlife.co.uk/about_hunstanton/hunstanton-pier/

 

Thanks. It was a very enjoyable film, and one I hadn't previously seen - recommended, if you can get hold of a copy.

 

The history of the Hunstanton Pier Railway is a bit obscure like much of miniature railway history. Some of the published information about stock is not entirely accurate. The line was a 10 1/4 inch
gauge line which appears to have opened after the last war. The loco that appears in the film and in all the photos I have seen was based on the LMS Fowler/Deeley compound and named "Maid
Marion". She is reputed to have been built in India in the 'twenties, possibly at a main-line railway workshop. Having had a close look at her when she was dismantled. I can state that she was built
originally to the old 9 1/2 inch gauge, had only two cylinders and may have contained some castings from Bassett Lowke. There is no evidence that, as was often claimed, she was built by BL.

The film was made in 1957 and you can see that she was in a bit of a state by then. Later that year she was bought, together with some stock and rail, " from a boatyard in Kings Lynn" by
C.H. "Charlie" Reed, a friend and former employer of my late father. They had got involved in portable miniature railways when working at a certain maker of large trucks. In those days of
shortages the "U" section conduit used to protect electrics and hydraulic pipes made an acceptable substitute for rail. The effective length of a track panel was limited by the length that
could be smuggled out of the Tolpits Lane plant tied under the chassis of a Ford "8" !

Charlie Reed used "Maid Marion" as the initial motive power for the Cassiobury Park Railway in Watford that opened in the summer of 1959. The Hunstanton Pier Railway carried on
however, in about 1959 I travelled on it. The loco was a hideous petrol or diesel-engined affair loosely shaped as an " A 4" , just the sort of thing that a showman would produce.
I remember that particularly because that day we also visited a neighbours' sister who lived in a BR crossing cottage just out of the town.
When Charlie sold the Watford railway in 1968, the steam loco went down to Devon with him. In 1979 my Dad sold the Watford railway to a certain Jeff Price ( yes that one! ).
I know that Jeff bought "Maid Marion" back at auction later but decided not to keep her. If he sees this, perhaps he can fill in a bit of her latest history.

The pier railway closed sometime in the 1960s. The Kings Lynn to Hunstanton branch shown in the well-known BTF film with John Betjamin followed into oblivion in 1970.
The pier succumbed to the weather in 1978. Last time I travelled through Hunstanton all that was left was a couple of short girder ends embedded in a wall - sic transit Gloria Mundi !