A Lost Transport of Delight
Thanks to 1950s Nimbys, St Leonards lost its miniature electric trams after just one glorious summer season. DAVE YOUNG tells the sorry tale.
Many Hastings seaside attractions have sadly proved ephemeral: St Leonards pier, the marvellous modernist bathing pool, an abortive plan for an airport. Thankfully the miniature steam railway remains with us.
Little if at all remembered, is the brief presence of a small electric tramway in West St Leonards. During the 1951 summer season, it ran from the now demolished lido (constructed by ‘concrete king’ Sydney Little for the 1933 Empire Games) along the seaward side of Grosvenor Gardens.
The tramway originated in London, where, during the late 1940s, an innovative engineer, Claude Lane, ran a company in Barnet manufacturing Lecar electric milk floats; very ‘environmentally friendly’, a description which wouldn’t enter common currency for another half-century.
The business was so successful that Lane had time to pursue his lifelong hobby. He spent a summer driving (electric) trams in Blackpool and was subsequently inspired to build a smaller replica, a fully functioning tram based on number 23 of the Welsh Llandudno & Colwyn Bay system.
Lane started from scratch, employing considerable engineering ingenuity and assisted by a young tram enthusiast, Allan Gardner – who chanced by Lane’s factory one day and was offered a job on the spot. They soon built a scaled-down tramway layout complete with rails, points and a battery power supply.
This successfully toured local fetes in north London and Hertfordshire and, pleased by the enthusiastic public reception, Lane searched for somewhere to permanently locate his creation. An opportunity presented itself in St Leonards-on-Sea, a town that had unwisely dispensed with a full-size public tramway network stretching from Ore to Bexhill, back in 1929.
This was because the miniature railway, ‘The Bathing Pool Express’ originally located at West St Leonards, had recently been relocated to Rock-a-Nore. This mini steam railway, built by Capt J E P Howey – who also constructed the legendary Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch line – had not found favour with nearby residents. By all accounts, they were a rather snooty and ‘superior’ lot who moaned about engine noise, whistles and ‘shrieking children’. Following council debates and protest petitions, the little iron horses were evicted in 1947 and relocated to the opposite end of the seafront the following year.
The remaining track bed and engine shed proved an ideal foundation for Lane’s (hopefully) quieter electric tramcars, and a deal was struck between him and the council for a one-year trial season. A large amount of equipment was transported from London, and track, points, and a passenger platform were constructed along the promenade. “When viewed from the bathing pool it looked as if the traction poles stretched into infinity,” observed an admiring local at the time. When pursuing a lifelong obsession – at his request, Lane’s nanny had taken him to view trams as a toddler – it helps to have your own skilled workforce and vehicle fleet to hand…
Everything was set for the grand opening ceremony on Whitsun Weekend. As is traditional for English bank holidays, the weather on the preceding Friday was atrocious. Luckily on the great day it “turned out nice again”, car 23’s test run passed without incident and Lord Mayor Alderman J D Cooper, switched on the tramway at 2.30pm, Saturday 12th May 1951.
A noticeboard proclaimed it the “world’s smallest public tramway,” with the price of a ticket 3d for a single journey and 6d for a return. During that summer, the two tramcars – one open-topped, the other a diminutive double-decker, almost impossible for adults to enter – gained a positive reception from visitors, locals and nearby traders, bringing increased footfall to the bathing pool, which had been struggling to attract visitors.
At this happy juncture things went pear-shaped. In true nimby fashion, a group of grumpy residents began complaining. The traction poles were “unsightly and spoilt the view”, the trams “too noisy” and “made the teacups rattle on the tables in the hotel”. Quelle horreur! By late summer a petition “signed by over 40 residents” was sent to the council, demanding that the tramway be removed.
In July, the council’s entertainment committee met at the Wilton Hotel, Grosvenor Crescent to consider the issue (there’s no record as to clinking crockery). According to contemporary newspaper reports, concerns were aired regarding pedestrian safety when crossing the rails and the “model electric tramway” operating beyond 9pm. “Nuisance, noise and parking” problems were all complained of, along with “children”, apparently generically rather than for any specific reason. Then, as now, we British didn’t really like young people. Plus ça change.
The debate continued at a further meeting in November. No matter there were also petitions, including local shopkeepers, wanting the tram to remain – it’s been claimed those far outnumbered those against five to one. An alderman (as councillors were called in those days) supporting the tram’s case to stay sagely pointed out that just across the adjacent main road (where TK Maxx is currently situated) was a railway wagon marshalling yard and full-size steam engines working 24 hours a day.
There were thinly veiled allegations the council’s eventual decision was a foregone conclusion. If so ‘outraged of West St Leonards’ was clearly well connected. The experiment ended, the lease was not renewed and hopes of the little trams providing a lucrative tourist attraction for years to come were dashed.
Claude Lane sought alternative locations in other coastal resorts and hearing that a miniature steam railway had ceased operating at a fairground in Rhyl he negotiated a two-year lease. The trams ran there for five seasons from 1952 before once again relocating – this time back to East Sussex.
The Eastbourne Electric Tramway ran successfully between Princes Park and the Crumbles for several years, but by the mid-1960s, sprawling urban development threatened its existence, and it closed in 1969.
Seeking a secure home, Lane discovered the former Seaton Town branch line in East Devon, recently closed amid Dr Beeching’s draconian and disastrous cuts to British Rail infrastructure. Despite initial public concerns about noise and environmental impact (sound familiar?), a Light Railway Order was granted in 1969, and the tramway reopened in August, 1970. Operating from a new station, over a dozen colourful trams currently run on a three-mile route through wetland nature reserves next to the River Axe. Sadly, Claude Lane died of a heart attack in 1971 and his work was completed by his protege, Allan J. Gardner, MBE. The little trams have now been running for 55 years – but not in St Leonards…
Want to know more? The excellent, anonymously written, tram23.co.uk website has a wealth of background history and good black and white images of the construction and operation of the St Leonards electric tramway.
You’ll find a grainy video of the trams in action at Eastbourne on Youtube. It’s rumoured the prototype Car 23 was filmed by British Movietone News when at a north London fete. Thanks to Seaton Electric Tramway in East Devon – well worth a visit- for supplying the pictures. tram.co.uk
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Fascinating article, I knew nothing about this! A couple of minor errors though. Firstly, Hastings had (and still has) a mayor, not a lord mayor. And secondly, councillors were not known as aldermen at that time. Councillors were elected in the same way they are now. Aldermen were appointed to the council by the elected councillors. Aldermen were abolished in the 60s, because the system was open to widespread abuse, with local businessmen bribing councillors to appoint them as aldermen. They had the same functions and responsibilities as councillors, but without the responsibilities to an electorate in a particular ward.
I had a memory of riding this tramway in 1951, I was 4 years old and was lifted by my dad over the side of the “boat car”. I was born in Eastbourne and watched the tramway being built there in 1954 and filmed it just before closure in 1969 (“the grainy video”).
I eventually had a career which involved me in key roles in creating the new tram systems in Croydon and Nottingham. It was only in recent years that I discovered that my memory of a tram in St.Leonards was not a dream but very real and that it had an impact far beyond that town by inspiring me to help develop modern tram systems.