The History of Stokes Bay Railway Part 2
| Published: 14th May 2008 10:06 |
The History of the Stokes Bay Railway Part 2
The first AGM of the Stokes Bay Railway & Pier Co. was held in October 1855 at the Anglesea Hotel and in reply to a question the Chairman Mr. Fleming concluded, "the probability of the line being used by her Majesty in preference to the main Gosport route was most likely" (as we know this never happened). This hope was fuelled by a visit to the pier by Prince Albert in the company of General Sir F. Smith of the RE, when the Prince was said to be very impressed with the whole operation but surprisingly very little is known of this Royal Visit. November saw the formation of the Isle of Wight Steam Bridge Co. that became a registered in December 1855. Unbelievably the company's original plan was to cross the Solent with a chain driven floating bridge, however after objections, not the least from the Navy this plan was abandoned and the name of the company altered to the Isle of Wight Ferry Co. In July 1856 the Act of Parliament authorized the company to:-
make and maintain, within certain limits, such inclines, landing places, approaches, cuts, works, toll houses and conveniences as necessary and establish and work a ferry with and by a vessel or vessels to ply between the landing place to be constructed by the company at stokes bay and the landing place to be constructed by them at Ryde.
While this legislation was being passed the Stokes Bay Railway & Pier Co. were attempting to implement their Act of Parliament. Here began a delay which was to last eight years and which was to require another Act as the time limit ran out. One of the major delays was the report from the Admiralty Board of Ordinance and the Board of Trade. These reports and recommendations were to increase the cost of the construction by at least £6,000. In January 1856 the company's engineer, Hamilton Fulton, appointed Smith and Knight as contractors; they offered to build the line for £16,200 and they also tendered to construct the pier for a further £8,000. The Stokes Bay Railway & Pier Co.'s board decided that before the commencement of any work it would be as well to have an understanding with the London & South Western Railway Co. (LSWR) from whose main line the junction to the pier line would be made. Financial problems followed and within a short space of time attempts were made to find other contractors who would accept, as payment, a larger proportion of the shares and less actual money than Smith and Knight would, one wonders whether they realised that this was to be a line always dogged by financial problems and that their shares would eventually be more of a liability than an asset.
At the meeting with the LSWR the chairman of the Stokes Bay Co. discovered that the LSWR was reluctant to commit itself and in 1856 the LSWR wrote to the Stokes Bay Co. to say that they might possibly consider talking when the line was more complete. The same reply was received after representations were made in the July; obviously the LSWR was not impressed with what it saw. In November the Stokes Bay chairman was granted another interview with the LSWR board to discuss the running of the line. It was never the intention of Stokes Bay Co. to provide locomotives and rolling stock; it was hoped that LSWR would work the line for them at an agreed rate. At the November meeting it was decided that the funds of the Stokes Bay Cc. were so limited that the LSWR would work the line at cost price to try to stem the drain on Stokes Bay Company's finances. The LSWR agreed to work the line but insisted on certain improvements being made and by March estimates of over £40.000 were being quoted and the negotiations with the contractors were at a standstill. No agreement could be reached with Smith & Knight so they retired from the scene and devoted their energies to build the Metropolitan Railway instead.
In March 1858 a deputation from the Stokes Bay Co, attended a meeting with the LSWR board to arrange a working agreement for the line. After discussions the final agreement provided for :-
1. The Stokes Bay Co. to construct the railway and the pier the proposed cost of £40,000 to include double track, sidings and a covered station.
2.The LSWR to work the line paying £1,600 per annum subject to a suitable ferry service being provided to the Isle of Wight.
3.The ferry company to agree that the ferry fare would not exceed one twelfth of the London to Gosport rail fare.
4.The LSWR to guarantee that the fare charged between London and Gosport would be exactly the same as the London to Portsmouth fare.
The agreement was ratified and in fact the negotiated rent was increased to £1,800 per annum by this time, 1858, the time span allowed by the 1856 Act was running short and as a lot of the work had yet to be completed a new Act was applied for and became law on 28th June 1858.
After the departure of Smith and Knight work on the line came to a halt and again the construction of the line was put out to tender, two new tenders were received; one from Mr. Catlin for £34,000 and the other from Messrs. Lucas for £28,600, the latter tender was accepted but the directors of the Railway and Pier Co. could not agree terms with the tenderers and so the tender was withdrawn. it was at this time the name of Thomas Brassey and his agent Ogilv appears on the scene. They agreed. in March 1859 to construct the railway and pier under the original terms which were accepted by Smith and Knight. In April their tender was submitted and by November they had submitted a bill for £475 for the works carried out to date. The details of this construction are rather thin on the ground but one assumes that with a length of line a little over a mile and a half long with no major civil engineering works on it and only two water crossings the building of the line was no great problem to Brassey. Why such a well known railway contractor as Thomas Brassey should be interested in the Stokes Bay Railway is a little baffling. Brassey at this time had already built several sections of the LSWR and had just completed the Portsmouth direct line. As is well known he constructed the original Gosport line so maybe he considered that this was an ideal way to finish off that particular job as on the original plans for the Gosport line the railway was to run down to a pier in Portsmouth Harbour and then the passengers could walk directly onto a ferry to the Isle of Wight the pier proposal for the Gosport main line was not to be because of military objections so maybe the idea of a pier and a ferry connection at Stokes Bay in Brassey's mind, finished off the job from those years before whatever the reason by end of 1860 he had presented bills to the value of £11,363 he indicated that he would be prepared to accept payment in paid up shares of company. As it was obvious that this particular company was never going to pay a dividend, the reasons for Brassey's actions can only be the subject of speculation.
Work progressed and by late 1862 a date was fixed for Captain Tyler of the government inspectorate to conduct a detailed inspection of the line. On 5th January 1863 the Hampshire Telegraph reported that "Captain Tyler, who came especially from London, was prevented from making the usual official inspection of works by the contractors employees tearing up a rail, thereby rendering the passage of an engine over the line impracticable. It appears that a very serious misunderstanding exists between the contractors and the director the railway company, to which may be attributed the impediment". However the captain made as good an inspection as he could and reported 'the line was one and a half miles long, double tracked and had a maximum gradient of 1 in 96.5 with the sharpest curve being of a radius of 12 chains. He stated that the track comprised of 75lbs rail, which was fishplated and spiked to the sleepers. Because the work was unfinished he could not inspect the work on the pier and in his report he recommended that the line could not be opened because of incompleteness of the works. He also recommended that more piles be added to the pier that the platform length be extended by 60 feet and reported that the terminal station the pier was by no means complete.
So eight years after its inception a service train still had not run. But there was more to come......
Article kindly written by Peter Keat
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