Trivia: Quay side/ Harbour stations/ terminuses

[Shimbleshanks]

Wasn't there a pier railway that was connected to the town's tramway system? Possibly the Isle of Man? Or did I just dream that?

 

[Western 52]

Wasn't there a pier railway that was connected to the town's tramway system? Possibly the Isle of Man? Or did I just dream that?

On the Isle of Man, Peel and Ramsey both had railway lines to their harbours, but not for passengers as far as I know, and they weren't tramways.

 

[341o2]

Plymouth Millbay, oops already mentioned, Bude had a siding to the nearby canal. Swanage had a pier tramway, some of the rails remain
British Insulated Callenders Cables had a plant at Belverdere, the railway ran onto a Thames jetty.
Merseyrail formerly had a station at Seacombe linking with the Mersey ferry.
The former ARC industrial railway at Penlee used to run onto a pier, loading roadstone into vessels



Image taken by myself in the early 70's of a train departing from the pier, shortly before the line closed.
Both Falmouth docks and Par had dock railways, steam lasted on both railways after 1968
Fowey was used as a port for china clay trains

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Could one maybe include tram stations on the Manchester Metrolink system which are located in close proximity to the former Salford Docks area at the top end of the Manchester Ship Canal? Thinking here of 'Wharfside', 'Salford Quays' and 'Anchorage' tram stops. Maybe there's a few others as well.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

The OP didn’t preclude light rail & tramways, so how about the Blackpool Tramway’s terminus at Fleetwood Ferry.

Is this the only light rail example still in existence?
(There must have been plenty in the past - Liverpool Pier Head tram terminus springs to mind)

If we're going down this route, then the Hythe Pier Railway - since it connects with the Hythe Ferry at the pier head...

 

[John Luxton]

The OP didn’t preclude light rail & tramways, so how about the Blackpool Tramway’s terminus at Fleetwood Ferry.

Is this the only light rail example still in existence?
(There must have been plenty in the past - Liverpool Pier Head tram terminus springs to mind)

And Birkenhead Tramways Woodside Terminus which was next to Woodside Station and Landing Stage and Wallasey Tramways Seacombe Terminus which was part of the Seacombe Ferry Terminal.

 

[341o2]

The Jersey railway at St Helier and the Alderney railway.
On the Isle of Wight, there was formerly a rail connection to Medina Warf, also Yarmouth Beach station, a short walk from the ferry.
On the Isle of Purbeck, both the Furzebrook railway and Fayle's Norden railway formerly ran to Middlebere and Goathorn, where clay was loaded into barges on the western side of Poole harbour
Vauxhall, Great Yarmouth, had an extensive yead to load principally fish
Southampton used to have an ocean terminus for boat trains, rail facilities were gradually removed, but in 2010 a new temporary platform was erected to the rear of what is now the Mayflower Terminus (aware that it has already been mentioned)

 

[Man of Kent]

I'm not sure if the OP meant solely passenger stations, most on the list below are goods-only locations:

Aberdovey Harbour
Faversham Creek branch
Bowaters Railway (now the Sittingbourne & Kemsley) - Ridham Dock
Chatham Dockyard branch
Sheerness Dockyard branch
Woolwich Arsenal internal rail system
Angerstein Wharf - still in operation
Ipswich Docks
Bristol Harbour
Gloucester Docks
Sharpness Docks
Sunderland - branches to both north and south sides of the Wear
Granton Harbour [passenger] (Edinburgh - Caledonian and North British both had lines)
Assorted locations in Cardiff, Newport and Barry
Does Tywyn Wharf count - narrow gauge to standard gauge
Porthmadog Harbour [passenger]

Apologies if any have already been mentioned.

 

[MadMac]

Ayr Harbour still technically exists. Troon had a line to the harbour at one point as did Girvan. What about Rothesay Dock and General Terminus Quay? Hunterston?

 

[Bevan Price]

There are trips from Southend Pier, getting along there on the Pier railway.

Southport pier has had a railway along it for many years, and, a long time ago, had steamers sailing from the end. However the railway has been closed for a while, and the latest news is that the rail track is to be removed.

Southport Pier has been closed for a year or so -" for safety reasons". The council is understood to be seeing if/how/when repairs can be afforded. Any extensive repairs would probably require removal of the rails.

 

[Harvester]

Hartlepool (Old town) alongside the Fish Quay. Closed 1964.

 

[hermit]

On the Isle of Wight, there was formerly a rail connection to Medina Warf, also Yarmouth Beach station, a short walk from the ferry.

Yarmouth IW, unlike its Norfolk namesake, never had a Beach station. Its station was at the back of the town, about 10 minutes walk from the ferry. I don’t think it belongs in the OPs list even at a stretch.

 

[Rescars]

The OP didn’t preclude light rail & tramways, so how about the Blackpool Tramway’s terminus at Fleetwood Ferry.

Is this the only light rail example still in existence?
(There must have been plenty in the past - Liverpool Pier Head tram terminus springs to mind)

If we are allowed tramways, can we include examples which were entirely stand-alone? As an example, there was once a very short line at Kippford in Galloway which connected a granite quarry via a self-acting inclined plane to a loading jetty on the Urr estuary. All long gone, though the inclined plane is still there in the form of a road leading to some houses and the jetty remains for use by the sailing club. In years gone by, there must have been a very significant number of similar arrangements to connect various industries to convenient transhipment points all around the UK.

1 Reason for this is Commercial - railway companies often owned the Dock, ships, maritime lines or some combination thereof. Airports havent had the same close connection. Another reason is time - when the railways were being built, they could aim for suitable sites to build harbours. Whereas airports came after the railways but needed large areas of flat land so couldn't always be built immediately adjacent to a station.

Having said that, off the top of my head the following Airports have a mainline station either within or adjacent to the terminal:
Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Manchester. Inverness has a station within walking distance.
Luton and Birmingham have people movers for a mainline rail station.
Edinburgh and City have light rail connections. Newcastle, Heathrow have metro connections.
Bristol, Liverpool, have direct bus links to a nearby mainline station.
I've certainly missed some links.

Your points about proximity are very well made and many airports are reasonably connected now. However, unless the locations have been fortuitous, the railways have tended to take a long time to develop routes to connect with airports. Just how long did it take to extend the Piccadilly line to Heathrow, never mind building the spur for the Heathrow Express? IIRC the railway crosses the end of the runway at Edinburgh, but a viable rail connection has taken a very long to come into being. It seems strange that the thinking which created the easy rail/shipping interchanges listed in this thread have not been carried forward readily to provide similar easy interchanges for air passengers as a matter of course.

 

[33017]

I'm not sure if the OP meant solely passenger stations, most on the list below are goods-only locations:

Aberdovey Harbour
Faversham Creek branch
Bowaters Railway (now the Sittingbourne & Kemsley) - Ridham Dock
Chatham Dockyard branch
Sheerness Dockyard branch
Woolwich Arsenal internal rail system
Angerstein Wharf - still in operation
Ipswich Docks
Bristol Harbour
Gloucester Docks
Sharpness Docks
Sunderland - branches to both north and south sides of the Wear
Granton Harbour [passenger] (Edinburgh - Caledonian and North British both had lines)
Assorted locations in Cardiff, Newport and Barry
Does Tywyn Wharf count - narrow gauge to standard gauge
Porthmadog Harbour [passenger]

Apologies if any have already been mentioned.

Given they said “station” rather than goods yard, I’m pretty sure that was implied. Would be a bit daft to list every single harbourside freight line - there must’ve been hundreds.

 

[zwk500]

Your points about proximity are very well made and many airports are reasonably connected now. However, unless the locations have been fortuitous, the railways have tended to take a long time to develop routes to connect with airports. Just how long did it take to extend the Piccadilly line to Heathrow, never mind building the spur for the Heathrow Express? IIRC the railway crosses the end of the runway at Edinburgh, but a viable rail connection has taken a very long to come into being. It seems strange that the thinking which created the easy rail/shipping interchanges listed in this thread have not been carried forward readily to provide similar easy interchanges for air passengers as a matter of course.

The simple answer is that by the time Air Travel was of sufficient volume to make a rail connection viable, the car was a simpler method of connection. Rail connections were added once road connections had reached capacity.

Whereas in the C19, the road capacity for linking London to Ports was pretty rubbish, and the railways had the additional advantage of quicker journey times then as well.

 

[341o2]

Yarmouth IW, unlike its Norfolk namesake, never had a Beach station. Its station was at the back of the town, about 10 minutes walk from the ferry. I don’t think it belongs in the OPs list even at a stretch.

Yarmouth Beach is actually at Great Yarmouth

 

[Geoff DC]

Penzance Station ran right up to the harbour until the part nearest the station was infilled to create car parking.
A spur led along the adjacent Albert Pier until the connection was severed in 1967.
See Cornwall Railway Society: Penzance area - as far as Marazion >>

 

[Meerkat]

Wasnt there a line from the Portsmouth Harbour station throat across a viaduct into the dockyard, with a station canopy for Queen Victoria to transfer to a ship to the IoW?
Possibly replaced a similar set up at Gosport?
And maybe a pier in Stokes Bay, south of Gosport?

 

[randyrippley]

If we're considering freight only connections then you have the various pier connections for stone at the harbour at Portland. I think there were two - Admiralty tramway and (from memory) the Merchants (?) tramway

On a much smaller scale there was a small pierhead for the Carnforth Ironworks on the salt marsh at the east end of Morecambe Bay

 

[Western 52]

For freight, Burry Port Harbour had many quayside tracks, mainly for coal exports. Many other south Wales ports were similar of course- Llanelli, Swansea, Barry, Cardiff, Newport etc. Some still retain tracks which are still in use, although not for coal these days.

 

[341o2]

Wasnt there a line from the Portsmouth Harbour station throat across a viaduct into the dockyard, with a station canopy for Queen Victoria to transfer to a ship to the IoW?
Possibly replaced a similar set up at Gosport?
And maybe a pier in Stokes Bay, south of Gosport?

I should have remembered that one, and Penzance, fond memories of disembarking from the Scillonian to catch the overnight sleeper to Paddington.
You used to leave your suitcase with 50p payment outside where you were staying on the Scillies, and it would be there awaiting collection on your arrival at Penzance.

Yes, Stokes Bay pier was set up to provide a rival and direct link to the Isle of Wight. It only lasted until the early years of the 20th century

Porthmadog Harbour

 

[Rescars]

Immingham Eastern Jetty used by boat trains until closed in 1939.

Immingham Dock closed 1969.

AIUI Immingham was just a small and scattered village until the GCR constructed the docks.

 

[GusB]

A few locations local to me:

• Findhorn
• Burghead
• Hopeman (not quite a harbour station, but I think it's near enough to qualify)
• Lossiemouth

 

[Scouseinmanc]

Has anyone mentioned Neyland?

 

[Western 52]

Has anyone mentioned Neyland?

Yes, post 34.

 

[randyrippley]

There were sidings on St Georges Quay in Lancaster alongside the River Lune, near the adjacent Williamsons oilcloth and linoleum works. Slightly downstream on the New Quay was a narrow gauge line, which I suspect fed the gasworks and/or Williamson power station.

==edit==
Those sidings were off the Lancaster - Glasson branch, which of course ended at..........Glasson Dock

 

[75A]

I'm sure that in the early days, the LBSCR had quayside sidings @ both Littlehampton & Shoreham.

 

[CPG]

Royal Edward Dock passenger station, Avonmouth (boat trains only)

 

[D Williams]

Penzance Station ran right up to the harbour until the part nearest the station was infilled to create car parking.
A spur led along the adjacent Albert Pier until the connection was severed in 1967.
See Cornwall Railway Society: Penzance area - as far as Marazion >>

And Newham, Pentewan, Looe, Tregantle, Calstock, Padstow, Wadebridge, Newquay, Portreath, Hayle Wharves and Lelant....to add to those already mentioned.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

And Newham, Pentewan, Looe, Tregantle, Calstock, Padstow, Wadebridge, Newquay, Portreath, Hayle Wharves and Lelant....to add to those already mentioned.

See post #23, upthread.