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From Forest to Ferry The story of the Brockenhurst Lymington Branch Line by Keit
From Forest to Ferry The story of the Brockenhurst Lymington Branch Line by Keith Hill
Softcover 80 pages
Copyright 2004
Contents
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter One:The Corkscrew & The Council
Chapter Two:Prosperity & a Pier
Chapter Three: Tunnels & Tank Engines
Chapter Four: Vicissitudes & Voltage
Chapter Five:Ferries & the Future
Foreword
My first trip to Lymington was behind an M7 in 1964. In those days, the railway was run in a very traditional way, with little regard for costs, but with a strong focus on the customer. Nevertheless, I was amazed to see the train run into the up loop at Brockenhurst, and then shunt across to the down loop for its return working. That way, passengers did not have the ennui of having to clamber over the footbridge, but could stroll gently from the plush Bulleid corridor coaches whisked down from Waterloo by a Merchant Navy to the ageing push and pull train with its slightly musty, horsehair smell and its soft exhaust from Drummond's elegant (but by then grubby) Victorian engine.
Three years later, and in the vanguard of the brave new world, I started to learn my trade as a management trainee on the South Western Division just two months after the end of steam on the Southern. In the late 1970's I worked in the Southern's planning office, and was involved in planning the extension of the branch line into Brockenhurst station, which kept it clear of the main line, allowed the removal of a non standard diamond junction at Lymington Junction, canting of the track to raise the linespeed from 60 to 70 mph, and the closure of the junction signal box.
I worked with Keith Hill at the British Railways Board for the last ten years until privatisation tore the industry apart in 1997. During this time, we both struggled to keep MPs informed of what was happening on the rapidly changing railway which they always enjoyed castigating in Parliament, and tried to help them with their constituency railway problems. On many occasions, I was grateful for Keith's natural fluency and quirky good humour (which is evident throughout his writing) in defusing tricky situations. During this period, I also worked closely with Sir Patrick McNair Wilson, Member for the New Forest, who at that time sponsored British Railways' private bills in the house. Sadly none of these ever included work on the Lymington branch, still less powers for the Solent Tunnel.
And now, seven years on from that, I have been lucky enough to be asked to produce a strategy for the long term sustainability of local and rural railways, including the Lymington branch, as part of the Community Rail Development Strategy, which I have finished penning just hours before writing this foreword.
Lymington is the archetypal British branch line. It was built by local enterprise and with local capital, absorbed by one of the great railway companies which invested in its development, and it had its heyday and declined. But instead of being turned into a cycleway, or fading into the landscape, it survived, was electrified, and has prospered. Now, renewed and developed by Network Rail and South West Trains, whose staff and managers are worthy successor to their forebears on the L&SWR, it still performs its traditional function as a link with the main line and to the Isle of Wight ferry. But now it also has the opportunity to meet new demands as the New Forest becomes a national park, as the demand for travel continues to increase and has to be met in a sustainable way.
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