The Southend Pier Railway is a narrow gauge railway in the English city of Southend-on-Sea, Essex. It runs for along the length of Southend Pier, providing public passenger transport from the shore to the pier head.
A wooden pier opened in 1830, and a primitive tramway began operating along it in 1846. The pier was replaced by an iron structure around 1889, and a gauge electric tramway was laid along it. This proved popular, and the number of trains gradually increased from one to four, while the number of carriages in each train also increased in stages from one to seven.
In 1949, four electric trains of seven carriages each were obtained from AC Cars of Thames Ditton, and the old trains were largely scrapped, although some were sold on. These trains continued to work until the 1970s, by which time only two were in service, and the railway closed in 1978, due to its poor state and the cost of repairs. Eight years later, the railway was relaid to gauge, and two diesel trains were purchased to operate the service. The railway was opened by Princess Anne on 2 May 1986. In 2020, Southend Council decided to upgrade the rolling stock again, and two battery-electric trains were purchased from Severn Lamb. These were expected to begin operating in mid-2021, but teething problems resulted in them not being fully operational until late 2022.
History The original wooden pier built in 1830 employed a tramway from 1846, to convey goods and visitors to the pierhead. It used wooden rails, and luggage was carried on trucks which were pushed along it by hand. There was also a truck fitted with a sail, which could be used when the wind direction was favourable. After being owned by a series of private individuals, the pier was offered to the Southend Local Board (later Southend Borough Council) for £12,000 in December 1873, who paid £10,000 for it after negotiations were completed. Within two years they had replaced the wooden rails with iron ones, and trams were hauled by a pair of horses in tandem. The tramway closed in 1881 due to the poor state of the track, and the problems of the horses putting their hooves through holes in the planks. A suggestion by a councillor to use an elephant instead of horses was not implemented. The tramway had been profitable during its operation, as the Local Board had used the profits to reduce rates significantly.
With the construction of the new iron pier, by 1889, about of gauge single track had been laid and a single toastrack motor car supplied by Falcon Works of Loughborough was run over it. An official opening took place on Friday 2 August 1890, when some of the members of the local board, accompanied by Dr Hopkinson and R. E. B. Crompton, representing Messrs Crompton and Company of Chelmsford, who had constructed the pier and railway, travelled the length of the railway in both directions. Three days later on the Bank Holiday Monday, over 3,000 visitors used the railway, with the single car running continuously from 10:15 until 19:30. A further 2,500 sampled its delights on Tuesday.
The motor car was equipped with a motor taking current at 200 V DC from the pier's own generator. The compound-wound generator was belt driven from a Davey, Paxman & Co steam engine with a locomotive-type boiler. Current collection was from a centre rail consisting of a steel channel and copper strip mounted on petticoat insulators, with a carbon brush pickup on the motor cars. The return circuit was through the running rails. In 1890, the single track was completed and two trailer cars acquired to form a three-car train. By 1893, a second train of three cars had been purchased, and a passing loop near the half-way point was added in 1898.
Over the six years from 1893, traffic on the pier had developed to the point where another two trains were needed. At the same time, in 1899, a second generator was provided and the passing loop extended. However, in 1902, Southend Corporation established its own generating station in London Road and the pier plant became redundant and was removed. The new supply was at 500 V DC; so the four motor cars were refitted with new motors rated at each. The trains were made up to four cars each by the purchase of four new trailer cars from the Falcon Works. Trains were extended to five cars in 1909, when the motors were replaced by British Thomson-Houston motors, and to seven in 1913/14, when a second 27 hp motor was fitted to each motor car. Each train consisted of a non-driving motor in the middle, with three trailers and three driving trailers, although the precise order in which they were marshalled is not documented. The motor cars and two of the driving trailers were enclosed, while the rest of the formation consisted of toastrack vehicles. There were also two double-ended single cars for use in the winter, which had motors and seating for 30 passengers, some of it enclosed but some of it open. Two service vehicles were also used on the line, one to carry luggage and stores, and the other fitted with a water tank.
20th Century
In 1911 the conductor rail was replaced with 45lb/yard steel rail, similar to the running rails, with new pickups, made of cast iron, being fitted to the motor cars. In 1919, the original track, now twenty years old, needed replacement, so new running and conductor rails were laid throughout the pier.
In 1923, experimental magnetic brakes were fitted to one train set. The experiment was evidently not a success as they were discarded after about a year. At the same time, new wheels with Bessemer steel tyres were fitted to all the cars.
The year 1928 saw the extension of the midway loop by a further and new loops were constructed extending from the North (shore) and South (pier head) stations. The following year these loops were joined up to form a double track railway 93 chains, () long, along the length of the pier. The track came out of cover at pile 18, the two signal cabins were at piles 47/48 and 179/180, and the south station was at piles 217 to 225. At some stage, a workshop was built along the west side of the shore station to handle routine maintenance.
During the Second World War the pier was closed to visitors. It was taken over by the Royal Navy on 9 September 1939, and renamed HMS Leigh, becoming an assembly point for convoys with anti-aircraft guns on the pier head. It was also the main shipping control point for the Thames Estuary. The trains ran over 300,000 miles during the war years, and carried around 1.5 million service personnel. They carried supplies and war equipment for the ships, as well as ammunition for the anti-aircraft guns. Service personnel included many who were sick or wounded, returning from ships, and some of the carriages were adapted to carry men in stretchers. Masters of passing merchant ships used to complain the trains set off the acoustic aircraft early warning devices fitted to their vessels.
With the war ended, the pier became a popular attraction again. 2,750,000 passengers rode on the trains in 1946, and this had increased to 3,310,922 in 1947. By 1949 the original rolling stock was approaching 60 years old and so it was decided to replace it. New stock was ordered from AC Cars of Thames Ditton, the survivors of which worked the line until its closure in the mid-1970s. Twenty-eight cars were supplied, forming four trains of seven cars each, consisting of three motor cars and four trailer cars in M-T-T-M-T-T-M formation, the motors cars being operated in multiple. Each train could carry up to 260 passengers. At a top speed of , the journey took four minutes each way, and during peak periods a train ran every five minutes, continuing until 11 pm. The record for passengers carried in one day stands at 55,000, and then new trains carried a record 4,713,082 passengers in 1949, the only year when numbers exceeded four million.
There were three common patterns of operation: Peak: all four trains in service. At any time two trains would be moving, one in each direction, while two more were sitting at the stations. As a train was on its way in to a station, the waiting train would depart, so passengers arriving at a station would normally find a train waiting, although this was not guaranteed. Off-peak: two trains were sitting locked up, while the other two ran a service. Low season: one train ran a shuttle service on one track while all the other trains were stored, at one end or the other, on the other track.
Decline By 1964, the trains had carried around 45 million passengers, but seaside holidays then became less popular, and visitors to the pier dropped below one million in 1970. Two of the trains were withdrawn, leaving cars 1–7 and 22–28, although car 17 replaced car 26 in the second set. Car 8, one of the surplus motor cars, was converted into a works loco, consisting of a driving cab at the south end and a flat bed mounted on the remainder of the chassis. This was used for the transportation of goods out to the bars and stalls at the end of the pier, and also acted as a permanent way train. It was originally intended that this would replace car 29, which had been converted to a flat truck with cab in 1902, but both continued to operate on the railway. Motor cars 11, 14, 15 and 21 as well as trailer car 20 were moved to the Southend Corporation depot at Camper Road, while others were used as a source of spare parts. One was sold for £1, to be used as a garden shed.
In 1971. the Borough Council considered three options for the future of the pier. One was to demolish it, which was ruled out by fierce opposition from residents of the town. The second was to replace the railway with an Aerobus system, with vehicles running along a cable suspended from towers built alongside the existing pier, but the cost was prohibitive. The third was to reduce the railway to a single track, and this was selected in 1974 as the preferred option. This was expected to take 18 months to complete, and to cost £1.3 million, but in March 1975, the council decided to use direct labour and to spend £3,582,000 over 15 years to upgrade the pier.
Later in 1975, they took delivery of a 6.6 ton hydraulic crane, manufactured by Atlas/PAPE, which was floated down the River Thames from Tilbury on a barge. It was rail mounted, but the wheels could be retracted to allow the chassis to rest on the rails, evenly distributing its weight over its length. In February 1976 a 4-wheeled Wickham trolley was obtained, and used to carry out a thorough assessment of the pier's structural steelwork. The railway effectively became single track, as the western track was used as a worksite for fitting new decking to the pedestrian walkway.
Although reconstruction of the pier was progressing well by 1978, news for the railway was less good. The track and the signalling system were thought to be life-expired, and consequently, the railway closed on 1 October 1978. The Council attempted to find developers who would manage the pier, but the requirement that the railway should be re-instated disuaded any potential developers from proceeding. In 1982, all of the 1949 stock trains and other equipment were offered for sale as scrap. The electrical equipment was bought by the East Anglian Transport Museum, based at Carlton Colville near Lowestoft. The hydraulic crane and Wickham trolley went to the Brecon Mountain Railway, where they were regauaged to and are used by the engineering department. Most of the 1949 stock ended up in a scrapyard at Shoeburyness although some went elsewhere, and some was subsequently rescued.