VICTORIA to RAMSGATE steam train ride 1960
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- čas přidán 2. 07. 2016
- Starting from London's Victoria station this shows the journey down the "Chatham" main line in the later days of steam, both from, and of, the trains.
From Bromley South to Ramsgate filming from the train was on the weekend immediately before extension of electrification from Gillingham to Ramsgate.
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Related links:
Chatham Main Line Ramsgate Branch en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatham...
London Victoria en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_...
Southern Locos en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locomot...
Grosvenor Bridge en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grosven...
Brixton en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brixton...
Herne Hill en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herne_H...
Thameslink en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thameslink
West Dulwich en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Du...
Sydenham Hill en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydenha...
Penge East en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penge_E...
Kent House en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_Ho...
Beckenham Junction en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beckenh...
Shortlands en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortla...
Catford Loop en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catford...
Boat Train Night Ferry en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_F...
Bromley South en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bromley...
Electrification en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_rail
Bickley en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bickley...
St Mary Cray en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Mary...
Swanley en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swanley...
Skyes Lock and Block Signalling en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William...
Maidstone Line en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maidsto...
Farningham Road en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farning...
Fawkham Longfield en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longfie...
Meopham en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meopham...
Sole Street en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sole_St...
Southern Region Schools Class Locos en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SR_V_Sc...
Walker Block Signalling en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles...
Maidstone Line en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maidsto...
Stood en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strood_...
Rochester en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochest...
Rochester Depot Chatham Sidings www.kentrail.org.uk/rochester...
Chatham en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatham...
Gillingham / Depot en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilling...
British Rail BR Beeching Report en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British...
Rainham en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainham...
Newington en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newingt...
Sheerness Line en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheerne...
Sittingbourne en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sitting...
Teynham en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teynham...
Faversham / Shed en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faversh... www.kentrail.org.uk/faversham...
Whitstable en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitsta...
Chesterfield & Swalecliffe en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chestfi...
Herne Bay en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herne_B...
Birchington on Sea en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birchin...
Westgate on Sea en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westgat...
Dumpton Park en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumpton... www.kentrail.org.uk/Dumpton%2... www.s-r-s.org.uk/html/srb/R19...
Margate en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margate...
Broadstairs en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadst...
Ramsgate Depot & Shed www.kentrail.org.uk/ramsgate_... www.kentrail.org.uk/ramsgate_... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramsgat...
Ramsgate en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramsgat... www.kentrail.org.uk/Ramsgate.htm www.s-r-s.org.uk/html/srb/R19...
Ramsgate Harbour en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramsgat...
Kent Rail history site www.kentrail.org.uk/kent_infr...
London Chatham & Dover Railway en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_...
Bromley South Chatham Line en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatham...
Southeastern en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southea...)
High Speed 1 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Sp...
Southern Railway SR en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Souther...)
Never tire of watching this precious collection of films .wonderful that they are available for all to enjoy.
Some lovely footage, I live in Herne Bay in Fleetwood Avenue, very rare to find film of the station. Thanks for posting.👍🤓
I enjoy watching all the posts from you, of those glorious days of steam, but this is the "closest to home".
We moved when I was three and a half years old from a flat very near to Hither Green M.P.D. to a house a little further out of London and my first real experiences of steam trains ( apart from being shocked in my pram as an old Wainwright "C" Class 0-6-0 came clanking off shed at Hither Green noisily expelling steam from safety valves and cylinder drain taps!) were at the lineside where the "Chatham" line ran along the edge of Petts Wood.
Just on the "Down" side of St Mary Cray Junction was a level crossing giving access to the Wood from Hazelmere Road which was a wonderful place to watch the trains pass by.
I'll never forget the excitement of being sat on my Dad's shoulders by the crossing gates late one Sunday afternoon as we came from a walk in the the Wood , and seeing at close quarters an original "air-smoothed" Bulleid Pacific come hurtling out of the dusk and roar past at the head of a London-bound express
At the time of your film, during the quadrupling of the line for Kent Coast Electrification Phase 1, the crossing was swept away and replaced by an underpass, which floods in heavy rain and is fouled with dog poo as the little mutts are taken "walkies" in the Woods by their owners.
Later a friend's father took us to Petts Wood Junction where a footpath overbridge gave amazing views of the South Eastern main line from Charing Cross and especially the "Down" "Golden Arrow" and other Short Sea Route Boat Expresses as they came climbing around the curve from Bickley Junction to join the Tonbridge and Ashford route to the Channel Ports.
The mixed nature of the rolling stock was a feature of Eastern Section steam trains in those days. Maunsell coaches (often the flat-sided Hastings and Thanet versions) mixed with Bullieds, BR Mk1's, and Pullmans as your film shows, in a variety of liveries. Early BR "Blood & Custard" , BR Southern Region green, plus the umber and cream Pullmans could all be seen in the same train.
Magical times, with whole days of school holidays happily spent watching the trains go by.
I remember also the trains of Continental vans, "Interfrigo" and the like from the Dunkerque Ferry. I think originally there was a "Grande Rapide" depot established at Ewer Street, Southwark which dealt with the vans destined for the London markets, but the Hither Green Continental Freight depot was built and opened right at the end of Eastern Section steam in 1960.
Sadly it was to end all too soon, the "Chatham" line first with Phase 1 in 1959, followed a couple of years later by Phase 2 on the Tonbridge/Ashford route, though thankfully not before I'd experienced a trip from Victoria to Folkestone on a Boat Train hauled by a "rebuilt" Bullied as far as the Junction, and three GWR Pannier Tanks down the incline to the Harbour.
I hoped for steam haulage on our return from an unforgettable railway-oriented Swiss holiday, but things had changed even in that short time, and our journey to London was behind the Type 3 "Crompton"/Type 2 "Sulzer" diesel combination that was the interim haulage before the EMU's arrived, and the World was never quite the same again..
Thanks for the memories!
Just great recall,I arrived in Sidcup in 1964 and did'nt catch those last days of steam, through Bromley Sth . By 1972 I worked for BR based at Hither Green P,Way major track renewals on some of the lines shown, Our cranes were mostly still steam fired ,The Continenyal freight depot at Hither Green handled fruit,veg and washingmachines from Italy. The Local length gangs based at HG had very clean overalls and certainly had their 5 a day.
When you made these films, could you foresee how valuable they would become in 60 years time?
Those Southern 'Schools' class locos were surprisingly powerful, packing a big punch for such a small size. They had very light firehole doors which must have been a bit of a blessing to firemen, taking no effort to open and close. The pull-out 'cow tail' levers for the exhaust steam injectors which they also had were also handy and placed just nicely on the backhead. What is surprising in the vid is what long trains smaller Southern locomotives were expected to haul. Thanks for posting.
Lived just on the London end of Bromley South Station until I was 7 (1960). Memories of being perched on the flint garden wall to wave at the trains, especially the boat trains. This proximity also gave rise to nightmares caused by the clanking of loose fitted trucks and badly maintained engines at night. Happy days. Mostly..
I was lulled to sleep in my first years (from 1948) by the sounds from Hither Green Loco Depot (71C) and shunting from the freight sidings, and had my first rather scary encounter with a steam loco, a "C" Class 0-6-0 fresh off shed and noisily expelling steam from chimney, safety valves and drain cocks as it clanked across the girder bridge over Manor Lane as I sat in my pram below. Perhaps these early experiences instil a lifelong fascination with the steam railway (no doubt the good Dr. Freud would have an opinion on the matter!)
Like a previous reviewer my gran lived opposite whitstable station, I still remember as a small boy watching the last of the steam trains prior to electrics late fifties early sixties from the station bridge.
Thanks for this video; it brings back so many memories. I was raised in a railway family in the, then, first house outside Ramsgate station and used the route quite a lot, but still learned plenty about the line. I particularly recall Schools class struggling up Sole Street bank with 10 coach trains, (you could almost step off), whilst Battle of Britains took the slope so readily;, followed by the electrics, which fairly galloped.
So glad these shots are on CZcams for everyone to see 😊 Fantastic nostalgia.......👍🏻 We need more on our railways line the shots in the footage especially European freight to clear the M20 😆😆
Thanks so much for uploading this unique footage!
I used travel with my Mum & Dad from Swanley to Chatham by electric train, then at Chatham we picked up the steam train to Herne Bay for a day on the beach, sometimes we went to Margate. Never went abroad then!
I loved it when she said, '' Beeching crossing, SINCE ABANDONED''!!!
Thank you so VERY much...I travelled this route ,from about 1961 to 1968,every week end...but as a very giddy and immature 16 year old (at the start in 1961)..I never took much notice of what was about me...BUT it has brought back many happy memories,but also a very interesting Video....My Mum and Dad had a Guest House in Ramsgate(our main home,Kent Terrace)but a house in Hammersmith,so that my Dad and I could work.
I now live deep in what was the old DDR,East Germany...and take great pleasure every morning on my way to work,on the bus..to have to stop at a Level Crossing,it has just been modernised,and has been very interesting to watch how the Germans renovate their Train system....Greetings from Lutherstadt Wittenberg...Scahsen-Anhalt..
Vielen Dank! When I've finished the uploading of my Film Archive of British railway subjects, I intend to follow with subjects in Mainland Europe including Deutschland. But doing it properly takes a lot of time, and one does need to attend to other matters. Yes I have been to the former DDR, but I've no films of that area. Grusse aus Surrey!
I drive passenger trains along that stretch of line. Fascinating to see the differences between then and now. Even more fascinating to see the things that have barely changed at all.
Nowadays I seldom ride it - but it would be fascinating to compare.
My grandmother lived at the station end of Fleetwood Avenue Herne Bay and I well remember summer holidays in the garden the smell of blackcurrants mixing with smoke from the trains
Wonderful footage - thank you so much for making it available for all to see ! Incidentally, the electric service started on 15th June 1959 (yup, I was there !) so the title should be 1959 not 1960. And the train with 2 or 3 pullmans in the middle was likely the Thanet Belle which always ran like this out of peak season, only being all-pullman during the Summer t/t (so last ran like that Sep 58 whereas last Belle formed as shown last ran on Sunday 14/6/59 ... hauled by a grubby std class 4)
In fact the footage was shot over quite a long period, so you'll be right in what you say - it would have been 1960 by the time I was able to put it all together, as I was busily involved in the engineering side of this project.
Many thanks for responding - much appreciated ! It's a great piece of work nonetheless - thanks for sharing with everyone. A 'must-see' for all those interested in train formations too.
@@AlanSnowdonArchive I've recorded my appreciation of your wonderful collection of films previously, and thank you so much for sharing them, and bringing back so many memories for so many people. If you worked on the Elcctrification scheme yourself, you're no doubt aware of this official film, "Modernisation on the Southern Region" czcams.com/video/OzDL7abXNms/video.html which covers the section of line that I'm most familiar with from my 1950's linesiding days, around the Bickley and St Mary Cray loops. Something vanished from my life when the steam trains stopped running!
Very nice. Thanks for sharing, and for not attempting to dub sound (which never works out Ok). I saw trainsleave from Victoria station in the late 1950s, before I had a camera.
What a nice surprise the pre electric south coast line. Nice film much enjoyed.
The train shown passing through Becekenham Junction (approx 1:50) is the 11:35 ex Victoria, comprising BP Mk1 4-set 870 strengthened with the pair of Pullmans, together with the pair of "swingers", in green, at the rear. It ran in the path used by the all-Pullman Kentish Belle (which ran in summer, ceasing in 1958).
WOW!! Thanks for all that detail, which I didn't know when I filmed it, or never - until now.
Thanks again for nostalgia.
I do the Bromley South to Victoria commute everyday and my have some things changed whilst others have remained eerily consistent.
I used to holiday in the Margate/Ramsgate area in the early 1960s and just missed out on steam. Assumed it had been electric much longer.
Living near Bromley at the time I recall that when I was young, an hourly (during off-peak) service of 4x 2Hal units ran Victoria - Bromley South - Swanley where it "split." One half continued to Gillingham calling at all stations, the other turned right, was fast to Otford, then all to Maidstone East.
That was the situation through WW2 and up to the time I shot the film from which this was made - 1960.
In that era, most rail users in Kent, were very pleased to have a cleaner, quicker, regular and reliable train service.
Fascinating film. I had an aunt who we visited in Ramsgate and can well remember the steam trains. I also used to live near Wandsworth Road station where the Kent coast trains and the Golden Arrow came by on the fast tracks. And later on, my sister moved out to Teynham , but by then the electrics had taken over!
Now don't forget the Night Ferry - through sleeping cars to Paris & Brussels from Victoria. Too late outbound for the filming of that time, and the inbound working came out of the morning sun, so difficult to film. Did you watch that?
Can't remember seeing the inbound Night Ferry, but as a mere nipper, I expect my Mum was getting me ready for infant school at that time! As for photography, my pocket money didn't stretch that far, I'm afraid... Love your other uploads as well, btw.
Shortlands water treatment works @ 02.11, still there today.
Lovely mix of coaching stock.
Everything from ex-SR Maunsell stock of the various widths and "high" and "low" windows corridor side, Bulleids, and BR Mark 1's, whiich were mostly in the original "blood & custard", but I notice that the shots from the train were taken from a green-liveried Mk 1 brake, and those only began to appear on the Eastern section in the last years of steam. Plus the Pullmans.
Nice to catch a few glimpses of early EMU's, too, all part of the scene in those days. I remember the bow-ended 3-SUBS, as seen "racing" the Pacific-hauled boat express near Bromley South, were "strengthened" to 4-SUB by the addition of a wider-bodied Bullied "trailer" coach
Hello Alan - I hope you have already but you do realise that these films should be lodged with the National Railway Museum? They're a wonderful record, not only of the trains and railways but the local scenery of that time - and they're in colour. They should be stored and preserved, no question about it. If you haven't already, I do hope you consider it. Thanks.
I had says out at Margate and ramsgate when I was a kid and living in bermondsey near Surrey docks which is now known as Surrey quays
Where are you now Ron ?
I was born in 1954 but I thought the cheap Spanish/Majorcan holidays came in the 1960's themselves and yet this is 1960 and already the narrator is saying that Margate and the like are declining in popularity.
Also it mentions the butcher of the railways Dr.Beecham but, again,I thought he was later.On the Sussex lines the only,relatively, small onehe preserved was the one by an amazing co-incidence that he used to get to London....lol
You know, with all the cross-channel boat trains, I never figured some of them would carry freight
The Southern Railway built three train ferries in 1934 "Shepperton Ferry", "Twickenham Ferry" and "Hampton Ferry" for the Dover - Dunkerque route. As well as the famous "Night Ferry" sleeping car train which conveyed specially-constructed Wagons-Lits sleeping cars overnight between London Victoria and Paris Gare du Nord, these boats conveyed freight traffic. Mostly "perishables" vans of fruit for the London markets, thought I've seen these Contintental vans on films of the day as far afield as Evesham on the OWW, where perhaps they were carrying British produce back to Europe (before we were in the EU...!). I believe the London traffic was dealt with originally at the "Grand Vitesse" depot at Ewer Street on the Blackfriars arches near Borough Market (I remember seeing Continental vans there when travelling to and from Charing Cross on the Southern Electric suburban trains as a youngster) until a Continental Depot was built at Hither Green in 1960, shortly before the end of steam. The newly-intoduced Class 71 Electric locos were fitted with a pantograph as well as third-rail equipment especially to work the overhead-wired sidings in the depot.
If you haven't ridden behind a stesm loco or seen one thunder down the straight ftom Waterloo to Clapham junction. YOU HAVEN'T LIVED .and such nsmes. Tangmere .elder dempster line .501 squadron. Appledore .wouldnt swap my boyhood with any one..
What straight? Waterloo to about half a mile past Vauxhall is 8 tracks of snake! I should know, I've walked it in the course of my job - before I retired from BR.
Hi Alan,
I'd like to seek permission to use the short Herne Bay clip from Victoria to Ramsgate 1960, for a Railways of Herne Bay exhibition if I may, but can't work out how to contact you?
Thanks,
Mark
@@AlanSnowdonArchive , 🤣 you have no worries there. I'd be happy with a yes or no answer, along with any requirements such as credits if you are OK with us using it, just leave the rest to me.
There used to be a method for private messaging on here, but I can't find it any longer.
The exhibition will run for two months from May 21st at the Seaside Museum, Herne Bay. We have been granted permission to use achieve footage from two other sources.
Your footage is rather wonderful showing the last days of steam and the goods yard in all its glory, so I thank you for that. Your footage here is most likely just prior to electrification of the Kent Coast June 15th.
Best Regards,
Mark Jones
Sorry, misunderstood! Your exhibition sounds great, kindly show footage crediting czcams.com/users/AlanSnowdon "copyright Alan Snowdon Archive 2022", please mention here for my interested channel viewers too.
@@AlanSnowdonArchive Thank you so much, greatly appreciate.
We will cover about 20 different subjects relating to Herne Bay's railway history, as much as wall space will allow. We have items coming in on lone including old signage, block instruments, signal box diagrams, uniform, finger destination boads, a sack barrow, models, Edmondson tickets, photographs, and archives film footage, and so on. There will also a history talk and guided station tour. There's a lot work involved.
Thank you for your contribution,
Mark
@@hernebayrailwayhistorian Mark, please tell me how to reach your Exhibition at the Seaside Museum from Here Bay rail station. I'd be very interested to come and see all the things you describe, Alan Snowdon.
Grate shot Alan!
Is there any possibility to contact you via email or phone?
Kind regards,
Deivids.
didnt know sydney was a hub of activity.