Hayling Island branch line

Disused branch line in Hampshire, England

The Hayling Island branch was a short railway branch line in Hampshire, England, that connected a station on Hayling Island with the main line network at Havant. It was built by the Hayling Railway; at first the company planned to run it along a new embankment built along tidal mudflats, but this proved impractical. The line was opened along firm ground in 1867. The line included a bridge and viaduct over tidal water at Langstone; there was a low weight restriction on the viaduct, and only small locomotives were allowed to use it; this resulted in the survival in active service of former LB&SCR A1 class tank engines (known as "Terriers" until closure of the line). In the early 1960s large numbers of holidaymakers were carried on the line in high season, but heavy expenditure on repairs to the viaduct would have been necessary, and the cost was unsupportable; the line closed in 1963.

Hayling Island had long been isolated, situated off the south coast at the eastern side of the island where Portsmouth stands. The soil is good, encouraging agriculture. In 1824 the lord of the manor, Lord Norfolk, had a road bridge constructed at Langstone. Mitchell describes the bridge as frail. For the first time the island had a roadway connection to the mainland; but the poor road system on the island, and the widely dispersed farming settlements meant that transport was still a major difficulty. In 1847 the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway opened a line from Chichester to Portsmouth, connecting with the route from London via Brighton. There was a station at Havant, but this did little to improve Hayling's commercial position, chiefly because of the poor roads in the general district. In 1858 the Portsmouth Direct Railway was opened; it became aligned with the London and South Western Railway (LSWR) and was eventually absorbed by the LSWR. Serious friction developed between the LBSCR and the LSWR and it took some time for ordinary railway business to resume. The LSWR considered Portsmouth to be the only significant population centre in the area and gave little thought to the island.

While the work was at a standstill, Francis Fuller (1807 – 1887) was active in acquiring land on the island. He saw the potential of the island for leisure purposes, including a race track and other amenities. Fuller noted that the railway construction across the mudflats was prohibitively expensive, and he had the line resurveyed, to reroute it across hard ground. He acquired the necessary land himself, and engaged a contractor, Frederick Furness. He got the necessary authorising Act for the change on 12 August 1867. Work had been in progress in anticipation of the Act and Fuller made a private passenger journey on the line on 28 June 1867. An inspection of the line for the Board of Trade, required for public passenger operation, took place on 4 July 1867, but here were numerous shortcomings and approval was refused. The Board of Trade inspecting officer made a further visit on 15 August 1867, and this time approved passenger opening. As well as technical defects there was an unauthorised level crossing at Langstone. As matters developed, the crossing was condoned and never converted to a bridge as authorised. This was immediately prior to the first day of a race meeting arranged by Fuller. The line now terminated at South Hayling (later renamed Hayling Island). The originally intended commercial destination and dock at Sinah Point was no longer in consideration.

At the time of the LBSCR taking over the operation, the company started to use the name Langston for the station, although the community was and is spelt Langstone. In the period 1879 – 1901 the timber viaduct at Langstone was renewed.

In January 1907 motor train working was introduced between Havant and Hayling. This consisted of a specially adapted ‘Terrier’ engine and a third class only auto train trailer coach. With this arrangement the coach was pulled as normal with the engine in front on the outward journey and on the return journey the coach was pushed by the engine at the rear. This avoided the delay in the engine running round at each end of the run. The driver sat in a small compartment at the end of the coach and controlled the engine regulator by levers connected through the coach, and operated the brake by a brake valve at his driving position. The fireman remained on the engine. Initially there was a mechanical connection for the control, but in 1909 it was changed to a pneumatic system. The single class coach was not popular as it had insufficient accommodation for the heavy traffic in the summer months, so during this period normal train operation was reinstated. In addition the running of mixed trains (conveying goods wagons) were awkward to operate under the push pull system. In 1916 the use of the motor train was discontinued completely. The road bridge to Hayling Island had a very severe weight restriction. During World War II armaments delivered to the Island had to be dismantled at Langstone and transferred to railway vehicles, for transport by rail over the waterway. Following the Transport Act 1947, the Southern Railway was taken into national ownership under British Railways in 1948.

In the early 1950s it was common for the branch to handle 7,000 passengers in a day, on summer Saturdays. There were three holiday camps on the island in 1963. There was no intermediate crossing place on the line, so the routine was that when a train arrived at Hayling, a loaded train immediately departed. The locomotive of the arriving train was released; the passengers having now disembarked, the locomotive shunted its train to the bay platform. It now loaded and was ready to depart on arrival of the next inward train. At Havant there was only a single bay platform, so on arrival of a train there a waiting light engine attached to the Hayling end of the train and departed for Hayling. As it was travelling away the released engine at Havant moved to an engine spur to await the next arrival. Accordingly, two sets of coaches were almost continuously in motion, using three engines. The engines took water at Havant and coaled at Hayling Island. In the final years of operation, the branch line passenger service consisted of 15 journeys Monday to Friday, 24 on Saturday and 21 on Sunday. The paddle steamer Carrier was built at Greenock and launched in 1858 as part of a fleet of train ferries introduced to carry goods wagons across the Firth of Forth and Firth of Tay. She had two tracks on her deck each capable of taking seven railway wagons. In 1883 she was sold to the Isle of Wight Marine Transit Company, who started up a rail freight ferry link between Bembridge Harbour and a newly constructed wharf near to the Hayling railway bridge. The sale included the cradles and winding equipment that had been used at Tayport and Broughty Ferry. The sale price was £3,400. The intention was to enable the transport of coal and other bulk commodities to the island, and cattle from it, by rail without the double transshipment that was otherwise necessary to cross the Solent. It was also thought that cattle might be sent from the island to markets on the mainland. Carrier made her first Isle of Wight trip on 14 July 1885 from Langstone to Brading; she successfully transported 12 wagons loaded with merchandise and weighing 160 tons. However, by December 1886, the Isle of Wight company was in financial trouble, due to very light demand for the service, and the London Brighton and South Coast Railway agreed to hire the Carrier and the quays to keep the operation running. Carrier had a flat bottom and the more exposed seas on the Solent were troublesome, and the ferry was unprofitable; it was discontinued on 31 March 1888. Two lines of wooden piles, which formed part of Langstone wharf, could still (in 2020) be seen near the remains of the railway bridge.