SOUTHEND MINIATURE RAILWAY
Hi
I was looking at the 10 ¼ society website and found mention of the above railway. As a teenager I was the first driver on the railway, having helped lay some of the line. From memory we opened in June 1977 with a homemade battery 0-4-0 freelance loco built on a Cromar white coach bogie, with a bumper car motor driving a chain fitted to one axle. It usually was found hauling a single Cromar White open carriage but just manage a second at a push.
The line was a basic oval following the edge of the boating lake, with a single siding to the shed which was built in a former deckchair shelter under the promenade. The track was Cromar White aluminium rail laid on hardwood sleepers, set in shallow concrete on the paved that formed 3 sides of the boating lake and laid in light stone ballast on the side nearest the promenade. The promenade side also had the station which had a single platform which was about 10 feet higher that the rest of the line with pretty fierce gradients each side. Running length was just over 400 yards.
The line was sold during construction, the original backer having run out of money. The purchaser was Ivan Thompson of Shoeburyness, a business man who had previously worked for Marks and Spencer. He had no knowledge of railways or engineering!
A steam loco had been ordered by the original backer of the line but it was very late in delivery. It was built by Viking Locomotives of Sheringham and was originally supposed to have been modelled on a Gresley V2. However at some stage the decision was taken to make it into a 2-4-2 to help it around the sharp curves. Viking was a 1 man band and the loco was probably too ambitious for him to build. After the threat of legal action it was delivered to site still needing work, mainly on the motion which had given a great deal of trouble to the builder. The steam brake was also missing. It was a big loco being built to 15inch scale but on 10 ¼ gauge. It weighed 2 tons which was too much for the Cromar White aluminium rail which wore very rapidly, particularly at the single turnout and on the outer rail s in the curves.
The motion was finished by traction engine owner from Wickford ( Les Smith?) and the loco first steamed at Southend in August 1977.
The loco carried the name Viking and proved very powerful and a free steamer which was not surprising given that it was comparable with a Basset Lowke Little Giant. I drove it for the remainder of that summer hauling up to 5 Cromar White open coaches, often from 10 in the morning to 10 at night!
The motion proved the achilles heel, mainly due to too little lubrication provision and too small bearing surfaces. At the end of the first season the valve timing was poor, adversely affecting performance.
During the winter season the motion was rebuilt with improved lubrication on the pins and slide bars and revised fixing of the driving wheels to the axles.
However in March 1978 the sea overtopped the sea wall and flooded the boating lake and the engine in its shed to a depth of 10 feet. This took a week to drain away before we could get in to see the engine. We stripped and cleaned the new motion, drained and flushed the axle boxes and flushed the boiler and steam fittings. The engine was steamed in late March although it took a further 3 weeks to clear and repair the track.
In August 1978 a second loco was delivered, this being locally built diesel modelled on a Brush class 31. It was made by a neighbour of the owner in his garage and used the Cromar White bogie from the Battery electric loco but with a second chain drive linking the other axle. The engine was a ford 1300 OHV from an escort still attached to the original 4 speed ( and reverse ) gearbox. Originally painted red and white it was repainted into rail blue and looked quite convincing. It was used on the first trains of the day whilst Viking was raising steam and on winter weekends. Although there had been 6 coaches delivered to the line when built we never had more than five in use as the bogies of the 6th were always used in the battery electric or the class 31
I worked on the line until the end of the 1979 season. In 1981 the line changed hands and the steam engine was sold, the line being worked solely by the “diesel”. The line was closed by 1986, the aluminium rail needing replacing and the loco in a run down state.
I’d like to know what happened to Viking as it was a remarkable engine and the first one I ever drove. The story was that it was sold locally but I have never found any trace of it. I now have a Rail Engineering business of my own and think that I owe it in part to my experiences at Southend.
I have several photos of the line and the engines I could scan if they would be of interest
Regards
Bruce Knights