Work to replace the track on the Hythe Pier railway – the oldest pier railway in the world – has begun.
image: By Geni – Photo by user:geni, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=53697796
… Hythe Pier Heritage Association is on a mission to restore the pier and the train…
New Civil Engineer writes:
The pier opened in 1881 and achieved grade-II listed status in 2021. The electric train, which runs the full 640m of the pier, was created to carry passengers from the shore to the end of the pier where they could board the Hythe-Southampton ferry, and vice versa. It was opened in July 1922 and has run continuously for almost a century. It still carries passengers to the ferry… Its regularity over the century has earned it the nickname ‘The Heartbeat of Hythe’.
Hythe Pier Heritage Association is on a mission to restore the pier and the train. Replacing the entirety of narrow-gauge (610mm) line will cost £500,000, and at the moment the association is able to replace the first 50m of the overall 640m…
The Hythe Pier Heritage Association has already restored one of the two locomotives and one of the four carriages that are shared between them…. [and] will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the train opening on July 23 with a Rock the Pier music festival.
