Dungeness Train Crash..........

[Didge]

Those of you who know the area, know of the one-third size Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway, and will be saddened that yet another train driver there has been killed by a bloody car driver.
This railway has operated for decades, with little incident at it's road crossings, now there has been two in the space of two years.
Bloody motorists, not content with making life difficult for us bikers, seem to be unable to see a fuc*ing train that's chucking out steam and smoke.
The car driver that caused the first crash in 2003, got a pitiful 12 month ban, and a £500 fine. (See second link).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/4670335.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/3701204.stm

[MikeG]

I do know this line (very slightly), and it saddens me about the driver. It is also a concern as to how the local council/government/HSE will view this incident.There will be "Risk Assessments" about every activity and if it is seen as too great a risk, they will expect the railway to chuck vast sums of cash at the "problem", even if the "problem" is a stupid motorist who takes a chance to get across a crossing in front of the likkle chuffa train.
A chance for more legislation and red tape to put an end to "dangerous" things like Steam Railways....
Hey Ho!

[Didge]

Mike, that is exactly my fear, that this railway could be in danger of possible closure, through no fault of it's own.

[Mark Walker]

Being born in Hythe and brought up in Folkestone (yeah not my choice!) I am very familiar with this railway and have ridden it many a time.......Its like a little piece of local culture and very famous in the area....very big attraction.....it is a shame that idiots are allowed anywhere near it in cars........and it would be a shame if it was seen as the cause of this incident....I do believe local kids even use it to get to school (or at least they used to)- how cool is that?

[nik_the_brief]

I live by the Hythe station and it's a very sad piece of news.

I'm afraid that it may well signal (no pun intended) the demise of the railway altogether because they simply cannot afford the expense of installing modern crossings for every road that crosses the tracks. If they were forced to do so it would bankrupt the company.

I used to attend Palmarsh primary school next to the tracks as a kiddie and it's quite true, a fair number of Southlands schoolchildren in New Romney used to travel to and from school on it every day. Also a few Marshan's travel to Hythe and back to do their shopping on it every week.

Most of the running of the station and the trains is carried out my unpaid volunteers for the love of them. It really is unique as the world's smallest passenger railway.

It was built for a mad (minted) eccentric named Captain Howie, an ex WW1 figher ace who was bequeathed two part built locomotives. He found an engineer to find him somewhere suitable to lay the tracks specifying ony that it had to be dead flat. Apparently after they were built he and his mates used to race them flat out across the Marsh at night. I'm sure if the guy was around today he'd ride a Monnie!

In WW2 it even operated as a mobile anti-aircraft gun.

It would be a dreadful loss if it were to be closed purely as a result of a stupid couple of accidents. Apparently the lad that drove in front of it was 20 years old (and probably too busy playing with his stereo to look where he was going).

[MilesB]

Anorak time again...

Most of Nik's info is correct... the 2 original locomotives were built for Captain Howey and Count Louis Zbrowski - both of who were racing drivers... a rich mans hobby in the 1920's.

Count Louis was unfortunately killed whilst racing, leaving Howey with his locomotive... the money for the railway came from Howey - who owned a large chunk of downtown Melbourne, and had a 'comfortable' income from the rents ;) - enough for him to build 13 miles of 'miniature main line' from Hythe to Dungeness, and get a further 7 more locomotives.

Being a double track line, then, yes they did race :burnout: (with staff closing the level crossings.

Howey also had a locomotive constructed using the engine and bonnet of a Rolls Royce Silver Ghost (apparently with the blessing of Rolls Royce too :cool: ) which could do over 60mph - not much you may think, but the rails are only 15 inches apart :eek: .

Sad news indeed - but I don't expect the line to close.

[Mrs Soup]

I love this railway, and was sad to see this piece of news.

There's alot of discussion about this on the big trains as well at the moment as the number of these incidents seems to be increasing. Many people are coming away from the control methods of managing risk and talking about the psychological and social interaction of people and systems to sort this out - mostly because they are talking of £3 billion for CCTV which will not prevent accidents, just let us watch !!!!.

Should get interesting