Brighton to Rottingdean Seashore Electric Railway
From BTMM_Wiki
| Exhibit |
|---|
Brighton to Rottingdean Seashore Electric Railway |
| location: |
| Arch One , Area 82 Brighton Seafront (display) |
The Museum lobby has a model of the "Daddy Long-legs" carriage on display in Arch One, along with a framed poster for the railway.
The "Daddy Long-legs" was the world's first (and probably only) underwater electric railway, drawing electrical power from overhead electrical cables, and returning the electric current through its metal tracks, and, to a lesser extent, through the surrounding seawater.
Swimming alongside the Daddy Long-Legs was said to be a "stimulating" experience.
The Railway
The Brighton to Rottingdean Seashore Electric Railway (known locally as the Daddy Long-legs) was an unusual sea-going railway that resembled a cross between an electric train and a mobile pier. Its engineer was R. St.George Moore, who went on to design the Palace Pier
The railway was built by Magnus Volk, in order to extend the reach of the existing Volk's Electric Railway Eastward.
The railway got around the problem of a lack of available seafront land by having its two sets of parallel rails set some distance from land, and by setting its passenger compartment on top of four large stilts connected to four shrouded, weighted pugs that ran long the underwater track.
History
Construction started in June 1894, and the railway was opened in late November 1896.
The storm in early December 1896 that destroyed the Chain Pier (which was due to be disassembled anyway) also wrecked the Daddy Longlegs’ landing stage and overturned the car. Volks managed to get the line rebuilt and it reopened in July 1897.
In January 1901, work began on extending the set of groynes that provided the Brighton region's coastline with some protection from erosion, and these new barriers extending out to sea necessarily intersected the railway track. That was the end of the railway, and the railway's single car, Pioneer, was eventually sold for scrap in 1910.
External Links
- Volk's Brighton to Rottingdean Seashore Electric Railway
- "The Brighton & Rottingdean Seashore Electric Railway", Volks Electric Railway Association
| Brighton Marina – Daddy Long-Legs – Volks Railway – Chain Pier – Palace Pier – West Pier – i360 |
