The Alderney Railway on

Alderney Alderney (; french: Aurigny ; Auregnais: ) is the northernmost of the inhabited Channel Islands. It is part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey, a British Crown Dependencies, Crown dependency. It is long and wide. The island's area is , making i ...

is the only railway in the

Bailiwick of Guernsey The Bailiwick of Guernsey (french: Bailliage de Guernesey; Guernésiais: ''Bailliage dé Guernési'') is an island country off the coast of France as one of the three Crown Dependencies. Separated from the Duchy of Normandy by and under t ...

, and the only working railway in the

Channel Islands The Channel Islands ( nrf, Îles d'la Manche; french: îles Anglo-Normandes or ''îles de la Manche'') are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They include two Crown Dependencies: the Bailiwick of Jersey, ...

. (There is a

standard gauge A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), International gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge and European gauge in Europe, and SGR in E ...

railway at the

Pallot Heritage Steam Museum The Pallot Heritage Steam Museum is a mechanical heritage museum located in Rue De Bechet in the Parish of Trinity on the island of Jersey. Museum origins Lyndon Pallot (known as Don) amassed a large collection of Jersey's mechanical, agricul ...

Jersey Jersey ( , ; nrf, Jèrri, label= Jèrriais ), officially the Bailiwick of Jersey (french: Bailliage de Jersey, links=no; Jèrriais: ), is an island country and self-governing Crown Dependency near the coast of north-west France. It is the ...

, but this provides no actual transport link, only pleasure rides.) The Alderney Railway opened in 1847 and runs for about , mostly following a coastal route, from Braye Road to Mannez Quarry and

Lighthouse A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Lighthouses m ...

. The railway is run by volunteers and usually operates during summer weekends and bank holidays.

History

The railway was built by the British Government in the 1840s and opened in 1847. Its original purpose was to carry stone from the eastern end of the island to build the

breakwater Breakwater may refer to: * Breakwater (structure), a structure for protecting a beach or harbour Places * Breakwater, Victoria, a suburb of Geelong, Victoria, Australia * Breakwater Island, Antarctica * Breakwater Islands, Nunavut, Canada * Br ...

and the Victorian era forts.

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previ ...

used the railway on three Royal visits to Alderney. On the first visit with Prince Albert on 8 August 1854, the Royal couple rode on a horse-drawn railway tender. There are two stations on the line: and .

Rolling stock

British Admiralty (1854-1923)

(The railway was, presumably, owned by some other department of the British Government from 1847 to 1854)

Channel Islands Granite Co Ltd (1923-1940)

This company took over the railway in 1923, together with locomotives ''No.1'' and ''No.2''. ''No.1'' was returned to England and replaced by

Manning Wardle Manning Wardle was a steam locomotive manufacturer based in Hunslet, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. Precursor companies The city of Leeds was one of the earliest centres of locomotive building; Matthew Murray built the first commercially s ...

0-6-0ST ''Nitro''.

German occupation (1940-1945)

''No.2'' and ''Nitro'' were commandeered by the Germans and are believed to have been shipped to

Cherbourg Cherbourg (; , , ), nrf, Chèrbourg, ) is a former commune and subprefecture located at the northern end of the Cotentin peninsula in the northwestern French department of Manche. It was merged into the commune of Cherbourg-Octeville on 28 Febr ...

in 1943 or 1944. The Germans lifted part of the standard gauge line and replaced it with a 600 mm gauge line, worked by two Feldbahn 0-4-0

diesel locomotive A diesel locomotive is a type of railway locomotive in which the prime mover is a diesel engine. Several types of diesel locomotives have been developed, differing mainly in the means by which mechanical power is conveyed to the driving whee ...

British Home Office (1945-50s)

The line was restored to standard gauge in 1947–1949 and the following stock was used: *

Sentinel Sentinel may refer to: Places Mountains * Mount Sentinel, a mountain next to the University of Montana in Missoula, Montana * Sentinel Buttress, a volcanic crag on James Ross Island, Antarctica * Sentinel Dome, a naturally occurring gran ...

4wVBT ''Molly'', in service from 1947, withdrawn 1958. May have been converted to a mobile sand-blaster, which was still extant in 1980. *

Cowans Sheldon Cowan or Cowans may refer to: Places Australia * Cowan, New South Wales * Cowan Creek, a waterway to the north of Sydney, Australia * Division of Cowan, a federal division of the Australian House of Representatives, in Western Australia * Hundr ...

steam crane A steam crane is a crane powered by a steam engine. It may be fixed or mobile and, if mobile, it may run on rail tracks, caterpillar tracks, road wheels, or be mounted on a barge. It usually has a vertical boiler placed at the back so that ...

* Ruston & Hornsby 0-4-0 diesel ''Molly II'' * Wickhams Type 27A trolleys

Alderney Railway Co Ltd (1980-present)

* Bagnall 0-4-0ST ''J.T. Daly'', steam engine built in 1931, in service 1982 until 1996 when sold to the

, Jersey *

London Underground 1938 Stock The London Underground 1938 Stock was a London Underground tube stock design. A total of 1,121 cars were built by Metro-Cammell and Birmingham RC&W. An additional 173 cars were added to the fleet by the end of 1953, comprising 91 new bui ...

from

Bakerloo The Bakerloo line () is a London Underground line that goes from in suburban north-west London to in south London, via the West End. Printed in brown on the Tube map, it serves 25 stations, 15 of which are underground, over . It runs partl ...

and

Northern line The Northern line is a London Underground line that runs from North London to South London. It is printed in black on the Tube map. The Northern line is unique on the Underground network in having two different routes through central London, t ...

s, badly rusted and returned to UK in 2000 as spares. * Former

London Underground 1959 Stock The 1959 Tube Stock was a type of London Underground tube train constructed in the late 1950s. They were intended for use on the Piccadilly line, but also saw use on several other tube lines. It was the first production tube stock to have unpai ...

cars nos. 1044 and 1045, From Morden to Mannez ''

Rail Rail or rails may refer to: Rail transport *Rail transport and related matters *Rail (rail transport) or railway lines, the running surface of a railway Arts and media Film * ''Rails'' (film), a 1929 Italian film by Mario Camerini * ''Rail'' ( ...

'' issue 597 30 July 2008 page 75 * A Vulcan Drewry

0-4-0 Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, represents one of the simplest possible types, that with two axles and four coupled wheels, all of which are driven. The wheels on the earliest four-coupled locomotives were ...

no. D100 ''Elizabeth'', bought in 1985. * A Ruston & Hornsby 0-4-0 diesel ''Molly II'' * Six Wickham rail cars. ''Molly II'' is currently awaiting modification to her coupler system, so she can haul the London Underground stock. However, this cannot happen at the moment because she is not yet owned by the Alderney Railway company. Sheds to house the engines and railway stock were built at Mannez quarry in 1997 and 2008 Notes * arr. = date arrived on Alderney * T =

tank locomotive A tank locomotive or tank engine is a steam locomotive that carries its water in one or more on-board water tanks, instead of a more traditional tender. Most tank engines also have bunkers (or fuel tanks) to hold fuel; in a tender-tank loc ...

* ST = saddle tank locomotive * TG = geared tank locomotive * VBT =

vertical boiler A vertical boiler is a type of fire-tube or water-tube boiler where the boiler barrel is oriented vertically instead of the more common horizontal orientation. Vertical boilers were used for a variety of steam-powered vehicles and other mobile ma ...

tank locomotive

References

Bibliography

* ''Railways of the Channel Islands, A Pictorial Survey'' compiled by C Judge, published by The Oakwood Press 1992,

External links

Alderney Railway official website

Rail 608 31 December 2008 magazine pages 68–69 feature on the Alderney Railway

* ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaHvDeJ9yqA The Tube Train That Runs In the Channel IslandsVideo of a journey on the line in 2021 {{coord, 49.718, -2.200, display=title, region:GB_scale:10000 Railway lines in the Channel Islands Heritage railways in the Channel Islands Transport in Alderney Standard gauge railways in the Channel Islands Transport in Guernsey Railway lines opened in 1847 1847 establishments in Guernsey