Public service began on November 30th. There were to be only a few days
of running before disaster intervened. On
the night of December 4th/5th, and again on the following night, Brighton
was lashed by storms of great severity and the Old Chain Pier, which was
in a rather shaky state, was finally dashed to pieces. Both Volk's lines
were very badly
damaged, and the Rottingdean Tramroad so badly that it could not be re-opened
until July 20th, 1897. Pioneer was roped to the pier at Rottingdean, but
she broke away, ran some distance down the line and capsized. The "Brighton
Herald" reported:
The waiting rooms and other offices at Banjo Groyne were utterly destroyed.
The Brighton landing stage was re-built in simpler form, and several changes
were made when reconstructing Pioneer, notably the lengthening of her legs
to 25
ft. Wise after the event, the company now insured both car and piers. In
true Volk tradition, service was maintained throughout the subsequent winters,
and on Sunday, February 20th, 1898, the Prince of Wales (Edward VII) had
a ride in the company of the Duke and Duchess of Fife. A plaque to commemorate
this was placed in the saloon.
The great novelty of "Daddy Long Legs" as it came to be called,
with its attraction of a sea voyage wthout mal de mer, and its delicious
sensation of earth-bound security as the car coursed majestically through
the waves, brought in many
passengers, and an hourly service was run in the summer months. The fare
was a mere 6d. each way. Admiration was
expressed in many quarters and the "New-York Herald" conceded:
There were snags. The car was seriously underpowered. At low water it was barely possible to maintain 8 m.p.h., while at high tide progress was so slow that to keep up revenue to a reasonable level the car merely ran out a short distance from Banjo Groyne and then returned for another load. The gale damage had been a serious financial blow from which the company had never been able to recover, and the second car it hoped to buy never materialised. Nor was it possible to carry out the plans to fit more powerful motors and increase the generating capacity. Another trouble was an increasing build up of shingle and sand over the tracks, caused by the action of the sea.
The quietus came in September, 1900, when the Corporation served notice
on the company to divert its lines, as it wished to lengthen certain groynes,
work which was urgently necessary to protect the Madeira Drive and undercliff.
It was
impossible to swing the tracks round the ends of the new groynes, as it
would not have been feasible to move the existing car in such deep water.
The company dithered; in January, 1901, the Corporation reminded them that
under the Company's 1893 Act, they had the power to remove the tracks that
stood in the way of the new groynes, and operations had to cease. It is
likely that Volk and his co-directors were only too glad of the opportunity
to cut their losses; the line was after all largely an experimental one,
and maintenance costs were high.
Volk still hankered after Rottingdean, and in 1902 the Tramroad Company
secured an Act authorising the construction of a 2 ft. 8.5 in. gauge line
on open viaduct along the foreshore from the Brighton boundary to Rottingdean,
to a length of 2 miles, 2 furlongs and 7 chains. As the Corporation had
already given Volk permission to extend the Brighton Electric
Railway to the boundary, this new line would have been an extension of that
Railway. But the £40,000 capital required
could not be raised.
For some years, all the works of the Seashore Tramroad remained in situ.
Rudyard Kipling fished from the pier at
Rottingdean, and as late at 1909, Pioneer still stood in the sea, roped
to the intermediate landing stage at Ovingdean Gap. Shortly afterwards,
tracks, piers and car were dismantled and removed by scrap merchants. The
metal went to Germany and probably returned to British hands in slightly
different form in 1914-18. Today some of the seaweed-covered concrete blocks
which supported the tracks can still be discerned at low tide, as if to
prove that it wasn't after all, just a tramway enthusiast's nightmare.
Apart from le pont roulant across St.Malo harbour, which was cable-hauled.
Volk's Rottingdean line was unique, though a similar line was seriously
proposed between Southport and Lytham, and in recent years the same principle
has been adopted for diesel-powered car ferries across the Amsterdam-Rhine
Canal in Holland. At the time it was opened,
imaginative journalists speculated on a similar line across the English
Channel, or even across the Atlantic. Imagine that—
London to New York by tram—but for the internal combustion engine,
it might have happened!
In conclusion, the writer is greatly indebted to the present and former
Chief Librarians of Brighton Public Libraries for facilities given and for
the excellent co-operation of his staff. For details of current operations,
thanks are due to Mr.
A. J. Hewison, Director, Brighton Resort & Conference Services Department,
and to Mr. W. F. Hall, Manager and Engineer
of Volk's Railway, The section on rolling stock owes much to the careful
research of J. H. Price, assisted bv F. L. Dix, J. H.
Meredith. G. D. Miller and A. G. Well?.
By Alan. A. Jackson
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