Rother Valley Railway

Flooding in the Rother basin is a regular occurrence. Remember it was all sea once.

The Newmill channel had its banks raised to combat flooding, but nonetheless Wittersham yard was completely under water one day a few years later.
I remember seeing a mouse on a sleeper floating by!

 

All the flooding at Wittersham Road is controlled. The conduit that drains that area runs under the headshunt buffer stops in to a channel to Potmans Heath where an Archimedes screw lifts it in to the Rother. Blackwall (the road between Wittersham and Peasmarsh) is designed to restrict the flow of the Rother so it can't inundate Scots Float when it is sea locked. When the flow is too high the pumps are stopped. The fields around Maytham Wharf also have lower river banks that enable the Rother to use them as an emergency reservoir. If you drive from Witt Rd. towards Wittersham about a mile you will see signs in the fields warning that the fields are an emergency reservoir and can flood rapidly. There is also a system where the flood water can be pumped in the Reading Sewer via Smallhythe and past the Ferry Inn at Stone in Oxney to be disapated in the Royal Military Canal and the Romney Marsh drainage system.

 

I think the planning would go like this: in two phases.

Firstly, work from both the ends advancing over the bridges, abutments and culverts putting down enough hard core to get a track to bring in machinery and materials.

Secondly - having got the level for the track up to the level of the under ballast - lay the sleepers and the rails. Then bring in the main ballast in main line hopper wagons and tamp the sleepers up through it. If you can get the ballast in directly fro the the quarry in wagons from which you can teem it straight down past the rails
to over and between the sleepers makes it appreciably cheaper - I have seen the price per ton being halved claimed.
This is supported by work being begun where the embankment side is slumping to reinstate the full length of the Network Rail down siding which any railway traffic has to use to access the connection to Tenterden RVR station. There are new drone photographs of this on the RVR blog and the text with them mentioning ballast trains.

So work from both the ends - and by all means from any good access in-between them - then once the rails are going down from the Tenterden end.
I suppose we will able to be sure that the connection is made through when ballast wagons and tamping, ballast sweeping kit turn up at Bodiam station.

 

…. not forgetting building or rebuilding the other missing/worn-out embankments, bridges & culverts first, including the new embankments on both sides of the A21 crossing (requiring temporary access roads as described in the blog).

 

As this post got a 'Like', I've pulled out a photograph that I took at the time ( 28 12 1979):



If my memory serves me right, the flooding occurred due to a breach of the recently raised dyke along the Newmill channel, which is represented by the stripe of greenery in the distance.
As you can see the yard was quite low, and attempts were being made to raise it. That eventually succeeed, when a whole fleet of lorries was diverted from an excavation taking place in central Tenterden
The mixer was there to construct a base for the water tower, as Wittersham was our terminus at the time. Later, it was moved to Northiam, the next terminus.

Right in the distance is the (very) old shoreline, when Romney Marsh was still part of the sea, and the French sailed up the Rother to pillage us, and Bodiam castle was built to stop them (by which time that area had silted up ).

 

Its a blessing that you took these photos at the time, Jo - they remind us of just how much the landscape of these parts has changed since the 12th century, and also how little it takes to undo those changes, much like the Netherlands. That looks like a precarious vantage point you had to use for the snap!

 

I can't see the mouse floating on a sleeper though - that would have been a Cuneo motif if he had painted this scene!

 

Probably on top of the PMV van body.
I have a lot of pictures of those days, I think I posted them before. I helped with each of the three extensions - to Wittersham, to Northiam, and to Bodiam. Much of the time I was actually earning a living on the Continent, but still recorded every working session that I managed. What to do with all the photographs now?
From 2011 I moved to the GWSR, and recorded those track lays. (and of course the Broadway rebuild) . The same question arises...

 

Here is one of the earliest, taken with one of those Kodak 110 pocket cameras:


That's Mrs. Blogger out there, in fashionable 1970s flares

That was the original siding, that led up the yard to the amunition store, where the rail mounted gun was based. There was no run round loop at the time. The first vehicle was the 'Yellow Peril', and wasn't the second known as 'The Bishop'? You could transport sleepers with it, by sliding them under the seats.
The steel sleepers behind were used to relay the Oxney straight.
Both volunteers are still there today

I remember the adventurous journey down there, through the reeds beyond the original Newmill bridge, and over a large dip in the track on the approach to Wittersham

 

Jo, never get rid of those photographs, as this stuff never gets old- quite the opposite, as it shows us all in a rather more carefree era, before H&S legislation, when we could just turn up, literally in the middle of nowhere, and work on our pet projects unsupervised.
I have similar memories of working alone in the old Pullman car sheds at Preston Park, hauling around 60ft lengths of rail, using a ratchet winch attached to the drawhook of a Brighton Belle motor coach! (What could POSSIBLY go wrong?!).
Somewhere, buried deep in the storerooms, I still have a painting I did many years ago, of Wittersham Road platform at sunset in the 1930s, with a Ford railbus rolling in from Robertsbridge. I must dig it out and scan it, sometime.

 

Important update today - the concrete has been poured in Austens bridge see Austens Bridge -9 Deck concretion | RVRailway News - so this can be used sometime in the new year.

 

I would expect a Curing time of 28 days before any serious use of the bridge.
Dependant on Concrete Mix used.

 

They did say a month - hence sometime in January.

 

Mark, I don't suppose you have any photos of any of the stock which was at Preston Park back then? Particularly interested in the large Weltrol DB901203 (6w-bogies). PM me if you do, please, to save clogging up the RVR thread. Thanks.

 

According to this website said WELTROL was in Barry scrap yard 23rd April 1987.
http://www.railalbum.co.uk/railway-wagons/ferry/britain-br-bogie-well-1.htm

 

Unfortunately no photos, and mores the pity. I do remember a Weltrol, but I seem to recall it was ex. LSWR, though no idea what became of it. It was a long time ago.

 

The RVR news page update with details of the final stages of repairs to the damaged Austen Bridge now has an addition of the historic 'click on link' right at the bottom of the page that gives some interesting background the construction of the bridge in WW11. Thats at:

https://rvrailway.blogspot.com/2024/12/austens-bridge-9-deck-concretion.html

Mike Hart

 

Last seen at Swithland on the GCR, not sure wether it is still there.

 

Thats an excellent, yet heartbreaking post, Mike. Shame on those who trampled on this work, an example of reconciliation and cooperation which existed, even during wartime. Perhaps the background story should serve as an example of what can be achieved, and how destructive enmity can be.

 

Thanks Mike for the link to the article - makes facinating reading.