Bideford, Westward Ho! and Appledore Railway

Route in yellow color.
The lines of longitude are 2 miles apart.

Route length:

11.4 km

Gauge :

1435 mm ( standard gauge )

Minimum radius :

49.1 m

Legend

0.0	Bideford East-the-Water	(Torridge Harbor)
0.4	Bideford Strand Road
	Bideford The Causeway
	Kenwith Castle stop
	Abbotsham Road
	Cornborough Cliffs
6.4	Westward Ho!
7.2	Westward Ho! Beach Road stop
9.6	Northam
	Richmond Road stop
	Lovers Lane
11.4	Appledore

The Bideford, Westward Ho! and Appledore Railway (BWH & AR) was a railway company with exactly one railway line in south-west England . As is common in England, the line was laid out in standard gauge (1435 mm). Although there was already another train station in Bideford , the line had no track connection to other railways throughout its history. The railway was operated in so-called island operation , whereby none of the criteria for this operation at BWH & AR apply: Neither is the line alone without other railways on a geographical island , nor were parts of the line to other lines shut down that led to this island existence would have. The reason is to be found in the fact that the Torridge River, which is quite wide here, was never bridged .

The name of the company is also something special. There is no railway company in the world with an exclamation mark in its name. " Westward Ho! “Is the official name of the seaside resort and has therefore also been incorporated into the name of the company. The name comes from the novel of the same name by Charles Kingsley , which triggered a storm of tourists on the peninsula at the mouth of the Taw and led to the new development of the place.

The eleven-kilometer line was opened in several stages between 1901 and 1908 and closed in 1917 after the three locomotives had been requisitioned by the War Ministry for French use in World War I. They never returned after that. Locals say they sank in the English Channel . A reopening was considered, but no longer considered viable. This line was the last passenger line to be built in standard gauge in Devon .

history

The plans for the construction of this railway were based on the early 1860s, when a bridge was planned over the 400 meter wide Torridge River . Scheduled stops should be in Northam , Appledore , Clovelly , Hartland, and Bude . In 1866 one of the company's directors, Sir Stafford Northcote, 1st Earl of Iddesleigh , who was also a member of the British Parliament , broke ground , but the line was never built. The original plans were changed so that on the way to Appledore a pan over Westward Ho! instead of the originally more southern arch. Shortly after the (second) first groundbreaking (this time by the director's daughter), the investor was already bankrupt and the project was initially abandoned.

The Electrical Federation Offices in London appeared as a new investor on May 21, 1896 . Shortly thereafter, in any case before April 24, 1901, the British Electric Traction Company (BET) took over the business. On that day the single-lane track system to Northam was opened. The remaining section to Appledore finally went into operation on May 1, 1908 and cost £ 10,000.

Rail operations

Fleet

Bideford station scene with two locomotives

Farewell to a locomotive over the Bideford Bridge in 1917 for war service on a provisionally laid track bed

The railway depot for locomotives and wagons was located in the Bideford exit station. The BWH & AR route was designed for both passenger and freight transport. A large plant in the city ensured brisk passenger traffic. After only six months of operation, over 8,500 people were transported. Despite the purchase of new rolling stock, some of the passengers drove on the steps.

four of six wagons with a length of 45 feet were for the combination 2nd / 3rd. Class determined. Each of the bogie passenger cars could hold 40 people
the other two, only for 3rd class, held 60 passengers and were 60 feet long.

There were also six other elaborately crafted cars. These were decorated on the outside with the coat of arms of the railway company. Inside, teak dominated . The ceiling was covered in linkrusta . The interior lighting was realized with acetylene gas lighting.

four of them with a length of 48 feet for 10 passengers in first class and 40 in third class,
two more only for third class at 66 feet car length.

As a rule, the passenger trains consisted of two cars, but mostly only one during the winter timetable. During the holiday season, however, trains up to four wagons long were sometimes formed so that several hundred people could be transported at the same time.

There were also eight covered goods wagons running on the route, each with a central sliding door on both sides, as well as a combined baggage car for freight and passenger transport.

Locomotives

Three identical 1B1 steam locomotives from the Hunslet Engine Company from Leeds were in use . They reached top speeds of 60 km / h, but mostly did not go faster than 50 km / h. In winter storms, people often drove much more slowly. Only 4 mph (6.4 km / h) were allowed on the streets in the area without a dedicated route.

The locomotives had a gross weight of approximately 27 t and could pull up to 97 t. They were originally black, then were painted green and then cherry red before they switched back to black due to the war.

Since the entire route did not have a turntable , the locomotives were used to change the direction of travel. Two vehicles pointed towards Appledore, one towards Bideford.

Timetable

Westward Ho! today; The route ran from 1901 to 1917 directly in front of the white houses on the left

The times given in the timetable indicated that the train would not leave before the relevant time. Only the stations designated as “stations” were safely approached, the other stops were stops on demand . Express trains only stopped at the stations and took just 15 minutes instead of 20 minutes on the entire route between Bideford and Northam.

If two machines were in steam, they could run every half hour, but generally the trains ran every hour in summer. In the summer of 1906, according to the timetable, 15 trains ran in each direction, only four times on Sundays. Four years later, the plan was reduced to ten trips with an additional trip on market days, and no traffic was specified on Sundays. For the winter timetable of 1917, which would have come into force on November 1st, seven journeys were planned, only the locomotives had long been in France. The successor came horse buses.

External sources

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^ Kingsley, Charles (1923). Westward Ho! Pub. London.

↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from September 13, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2
↑ Jenkins, Stanley C. (1993). The Bideford, Westward Ho! and Appledore Railway. Pub. Oakwood Press, ISBN 0-85361-452-0 .
↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original dated May 30, 2007 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2
↑ Baxter, Julia & Jonathan (1980). The Bideford, Westward Ho! and Appledore railway 1901-1917. Pub. Chard, ISBN 0-9507330-1-6 .
↑ Woodcock, George (1970). The Minor Railways of Britain and their Locomotives. Pub. Goose and Son
^ Page, H. (1992) Industrial Locomotives of South-Western England. Industry Rail Soc. Handbook
↑ Stuckey, Douglas (1962). The Bideford, Westward Ho! and Appledore Railway 1901-1917. Pub. West Country Publications.

[Kingsley-1] Kingsley, Charles (1923). Westward Ho! Pub. London.