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The Hayling Island Branch was a railway in Hampshire

Hampshire

Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. It was sometimes known as the Hayling Billy, a name now given to the footpath along the old track.

History

The line was opened by the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway

London, Brighton and South Coast Railway

The London, Brighton and South Coast Railway was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1846 to 1922. Its territory formed a rough triangle, with London at its apex, practically the whole coastline of Sussex as its base, and a large part of Surrey...

 (LBSCR) for goods on January 19, 1865, and for passengers on July 16, 1867. It ran from Havant

Havant railway station

Havant railway station is a railway station near Portsmouth.It is located on the Portsmouth Direct Line which runs between London and Portsmouth...

 to Hayling Island station

Hayling Island railway station

Hayling Island station, was opened in 1867 as the terminus of the four and a half mile Hayling Island branch, a single track line from Havant which transported holidaymakers to the resort until its closure in 1963....

. There were two intermediate stations at Langston

Langston railway station

Langston was a small station on the Hayling Island branch. The station along with the rest of the line closed in 1963, and it served the Langstone area of Havant, a former village which had become contiguous with the larger town to its north...

 (sic) and North Hayling

North Hayling station

North Hayling station was a halt on the single track Hayling Island branch, most often used to load oysters caught by local fishermen, but also ornithologists and ramblers"Southern Holiday Lines in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight" Bennett,A: Cheltenham, Runpast 1994 ISBN 187075431X. The station,...

. Neither were ever "halts", in spite of their small size.

The line itself was mainly used during the summer months as people from the South Coast would travel down to the beach on Hayling Island

Hayling Island

-Leisure activities:Although largely residential, Hayling is also a holiday, windsurfing and sailing centre, the site where windsurfing was invented....

. The coaches would often be overflowing during these months, however would be virtually empty during the winter, which would become a problem.

The LBSCR quickly ran into difficulty during the construction of the railway, as they had attempted to save on the cost of buying land on Hayling Island for the line by constructing an embankment

Embankment (transportation)

To keep a road or railway line straight or flat, and where the comparative cost or practicality of alternate solutions is prohibitive, the land over which the road or rail line will travel is built up to form an embankment. An embankment is therefore in some sense the opposite of a cutting, and...

 on the mud flats in the sheltered waters of Langstone Harbour

Langstone Harbour

Langstone Harbour is an inlet of the English Channel in Hampshire, sandwiched between Portsea Island to the south and west, Hayling Island to the south and east, and Langstone to the north. Geographically it is a ria....

 -- This was an ambitious plan, which also involved the construction of wet

Wet dock

A wet dock is a dock where the level of water in the dock is maintained despite the raising and lowering of the tide. This makes transfer of cargo easier. It works like a lock which controls the water level and allows passage of ships.-External links:...

 and dry dock

Dry dock

A drydock is a narrow basin or vessel that can be flooded to allow a load to be floated in, then drained to allow that load to come to rest on a dry platform...

s at Sinah Lake. Though they were given a grant to the mudlands by William Padwick, who was himself behind the plan, and the promoters offered to build the embankment and Railway at a cost of £80,000, the area was not sheltered as had been hoped: the bank was severely eroded before the railway could be completed.

The board of trade inspector was invited to certify the line as being fit for passenger

Passenger

A passenger is a term broadly used to describe any person who travels in a vehicle, but bears little or no responsibility for the tasks required for that vehicle to arrive at its destination....

 traffic, but he initially refused to do so as he found that many of the sleepers had begun to rot

ROT

The aviation term ROT stands for rate one turn, also known as a standard rate turn. All aircraft must be able to perform a standard rate turn....

 in the original section of the railway, and there was also an unauthorised level crossing

Level crossing

A level crossing occurs where a railway line is intersected by a road or path onone level, without recourse to a bridge or tunnel. It is a type of at-grade intersection. The term also applies when a light rail line with separate right-of-way or reserved track crosses a road in the same fashion...

 at Langstone. The former problem was quickly fixed but the level crossing remained until the closure of the line.

The line was taken over by the Southern Railway

Southern Railway (Great Britain)

The Southern Railway was a British railway company established in the 1923 Grouping. It linked London with the Channel ports, South West England, South coast resorts and Kent...

 in 1923 and by British Railways in 1948. Because of the weight restriction on the bridge it was worked, from late Victorian times to closure in 1963 by small LB&SCR A1/A1X Class

LB&SCR A1 Class

The London, Brighton and South Coast Railway A1 Class is an English class of 0-6-0T steam locomotive. Designed by William Stroudley, 50 members of the class were built in 1872 and between 1874 and 1880, all at Brighton Works. The class have received several nicknames, initially being known as...

 locomotives.

Closure

Over the winter of 1962 it was decided to close the branch, the reason being that the timber swing bridge which crossed Langstone Harbour

Langstone Harbour

Langstone Harbour is an inlet of the English Channel in Hampshire, sandwiched between Portsea Island to the south and west, Hayling Island to the south and east, and Langstone to the north. Geographically it is a ria....

 needed to be replaced. The line was operating at a small profit at this time but despite protests British Railways took the view that the cost of a new bridge was an unreasonably large investment. The final normal service train ran on the evening of November 3, 1963. Goods services continued until the final day but goods trains were not run separately. Instead goods were conveyed in mixed trains (passenger coaches, goods wagons and vans, and a brake van) and these were a feature of the Branch until the end. To clear the remaining goods stock away, the final train from Hayling Island on Saturday November 3, 1963 was a mixed train hauled by A1X no. 32650. The day after closure a special was run, hauled by A1X nos. 32636 and 32670 and this was the last ever train on the Branch. All three of these locomotives survive in preservation.

After Closure and the Line Today

After closure, an attempt was made to re-open the line, using a former Blackpool Marton Vambac single deck tram, no. 11. The tram was stored in the goods yard at Havant, and later, on Hayling Island itself. With no support from the local authorities forthcoming, the re-opening venture came to nothing and the tram never ran on the line. Unlike the line, however, the tram survived, and is currently preserved, in running order, at the East Anglia Transport Museum

East Anglia Transport Museum

The East Anglia Transport Museum is an open air transport museum, with numerous historic public transport vehicles . It is located in Carlton Colville a suburb of Lowestoft, Suffolk...

. The attempted re-opening delayed the lifting of the track. This finally took place in the Spring of 1966, and included the demolition of most of the structure of the railway bridge at Langston. A significant amount of the bridge remains, including the base of the swinging section, and what seem to be bridge piers. The bridge piers are, in fact, the lower parts of the wooden bridge structure which were enclosed in rectangular columns of concrete by the Southern Railway in the late 1920s, early 1930s. The columns stand on the bridge foundations, which were specially strengthened to deal with the tidal scour at this location.

Today, the area where the tracks once stood on the Havant side of the line, has been turned into a footpath. This enables people to walk from Havant station all the way to where the bridge and the level crossing was located, by Langston station, serving the village of Langstone.

If one were to continue walking south from Langston station (the railway never spelled it with the final "e"), across the road bridge, they would join the Hayling Island side of the line. This section of the line passes down the west side of the island, passing through where North Hayling station used to stand, and terminates at West Town

West Town

-United Kingdom:*West Town, Peterborough in Cambridgeshire*West Town, Hampshire on Hayling Island*West Town, Backwell in North Somerset-United States:*West Town, Chicago in Illinois*West Town Mall in Knoxville, Tennessee*West Towne Mall in Madison, Wisconsin...

, the main area of population in the south of the island.

This section is now a combined footpath, bridleway and cycleway. It has recently become part of route 2 of the National Cycle Network

National Cycle Network

The National Cycle Network is a network of cycle routes in the United Kingdom.The National Cycle Network was created by the charity Sustrans , and aided by a £42.5 million National Lottery grant. In 2005 it was used for over 230 million trips.Many routes hope to minimise contact with motor...

, sponsored by Sustrans

Sustrans

Sustrans is a British charity to promote sustainable transport. The charity is currently working on a number of practical projects to encourage people to walk, cycle and use public transport, to give people the choice of "travelling in ways that benefit their health and the environment"...

, a charity for sustainable transport.