The Saltburn Cliff Lift is a

funicular A funicular (, , ) is a type of cable railway system that connects points along a railway track laid on a steep slope. The system is characterized by two counterbalanced carriages (also called cars or trains) permanently attached to opposite e ...

railway in

Saltburn-by-the-Sea Saltburn-by-the-Sea, commonly referred to as Saltburn, is a seaside town in Redcar and Cleveland, North Yorkshire, England, around south-east of Hartlepool and southeast of Redcar. It lies within the Historic counties of England, historic bo ...

Redcar and Cleveland Redcar and Cleveland is a borough with unitary authority status in North Yorkshire, England. Its main settlements are Redcar, South Bank, Eston, Brotton, Guisborough, the Greater Eston part of Middlesbrough, Loftus, Saltburn and Skelton. T ...

in the

ceremonial county The counties and areas for the purposes of the lieutenancies, also referred to as the lieutenancy areas of England and informally known as ceremonial counties, are areas of England to which lords-lieutenant are appointed. Legally, the areas i ...

North Yorkshire North Yorkshire is the largest ceremonial county (lieutenancy area) in England, covering an area of . Around 40% of the county is covered by national parks, including most of the Yorkshire Dales and the North York Moors. It is one of four cou ...

, England. It provides access to

Saltburn Pier Saltburn Pier is a pier located in Saltburn-by-the-Sea, Redcar and Cleveland and the ceremonial county of North Yorkshire, England. It is the last pier remaining in Yorkshire. Background The Stockton and Darlington Railway arrived in Saltbu ...

and the seafront from the town. The cliff lift is the oldest operating water-balance cliff lift in the United Kingdom. The Lift, constructed between 1883 and 1884, replaced an 1870 vertical cliff hoist. It has a height of and a track length of , resulting in a 71 per cent incline. A pair of 12-person cars, each fitted with a water tank, run on parallel tracks; by removing or adding the water to their tanks, movement is achieved, regulated by a

brakeman A brakeman is a rail transport worker whose original job was to assist the braking of a train by applying brakes on individual wagons. The earliest known use of the term to describe this occupation occurred in 1833. The advent of railway air brake ...

at the top. The original cars have been replaced with

aluminium Aluminium (aluminum in AmE, American and CanE, Canadian English) is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately o ...

counterparts and the top station restored, but little of the underlying mechanism has been changed since it was installed. Owned since the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

by the

unitary authority A unitary authority is a local authority responsible for all local government functions within its area or performing additional functions that elsewhere are usually performed by a higher level of sub-national government or the national governme ...

and its predecessors, the lift remains in regular use between March and October each year. It is one of Saltburn's most popular tourist attractions. Reportedly, the service was being used by an estimated 150,000 passengers per year by the twenty-first century.

Cliff hoist 1870–1883

On 17 August 1861, the

Stockton and Darlington Railway The Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR) was a railway company that operated in north-east England from 1825 to 1863. The world's first public railway to use steam locomotives, its first line connected coal mining, collieries near Shildo ...

arrived in

Saltburn Saltburn-by-the-Sea, commonly referred to as Saltburn, is a seaside town in Redcar and Cleveland, North Yorkshire, England, around south-east of Hartlepool and southeast of Redcar. It lies within the historic boundaries of the North Ridin ...

from

Redcar Redcar is a seaside town on the Yorkshire Coast in the Redcar and Cleveland unitary authority in the county of North Yorkshire, England. It is located east of Middlesbrough. The Teesside built-up area's Redcar subdivision had a population of ...

. Its passenger services prompted considerable growth in the numbers of day trippers and holiday travellers. The boom in tourism stimulated local businesses to capitalise on the new demand, resulting in various new ventures and projects, including

, which was completed during 1869. Access to the pier from the town via the steep cliff top was relatively difficult and there was a demand for the provision of a better means of reaching it. The Saltburn Pier Company contracted John Anderson, who had designed the pier, to engineer a solution. He designed the wooden cliff hoist. The hoist, in a tapering lattice timber tower, was moved using water power. A balance tank attached to the wooden lift cage was filled or emptied, For stability, ropes were run inside the tower between the cliff top and beach level. On 1 July 1870, the cliff hoist was opened, roughly 14 months after the pier. Passengers approached the hoist top via a narrow walkway supported on timber trestles jutting from the cliff face, boarded the cage and descended . Movement was achieved by adding water to its counterbalance tank. To achieve movement in the other direction, water was drained from the tank.

Cliff lift 1884–present

Background

Following the sale of Saltburn Pier Company to the Middlesbrough Estate in August 1883, the new owners commissioned an inspection of the Cliff Hoist by independent engineers. The inspection led to the structure being condemned because of rotten timbers. The lift had developed a tendency to stop halfway demonstrating its unreliability. It was demolished in late 1883. The owners commissioned Sir Richard Tangye's company, who had built the earlier

Scarborough funiculars The British town of Scarborough has had a total of five cliff railways, or funiculars, two of which are presently operational. The town is home to the first funicular railway in the United Kingdom. Having noted the need for better transit bet ...

, two vertically-inclined water-powered funicular railways, to build a replacement. Tangye appointed the engineer George Croydon Marks as the head of the lift department and he took charge of the design and installation at Saltburn. Marks designed and constructed the funicular with a height of and a track length of , resulting in a 71 per cent incline. Elements of the Saltburn Cliff Lift were sourced from multiple companies. Most of the machinery was provided from Tangye, the cars were fabricated by the

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...

-based rolling stock manufacturer Midland Railway Carriage and Wagon Company, and the gas-powered water pump was produced by

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of City of Salford, Salford to ...

-based engineering firm Crossley Brothers.

Design and operational theory

As built, the funicular had a pair of 12-person cars, each of which was equipped with a water tank. They ran on parallel funicular tracks. Double steel wire ropes were attached to both cars, and the car's movement was controlled by a

at the upper station via an iron winding wheel with double grooves for the running cables and a

flange A flange is a protruded ridge, lip or rim (wheel), rim, either external or internal, that serves to increase shear strength, strength (as the flange of an iron beam (structure), beam such as an I-beam or a T-beam); for easy attachment/transfer of ...

for braking. The car at the top station has its water tank filled until its

mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different element ...

exceeds the mass of the car at the bottom. Then the car can travel down the incline, counterbalanced by the mass of the other car, which travels to the top; movement is regulated by the brakeman, who controls the speed of travel. When the car reaches the bottom, its water is released, reducing the mass of the lower car, and pumped back to the top. Water is sourced from a nearby spring and stored in a pair of reservoirs, one, capable of storing up to 136,380 litres, is near the lower station, and the other, up to 84,100 litres, is at the cliff top.

Operations

Saltburn Cliff Lift first opened on Saturday 28 June 1884, but there followed a period of inconsistent operation. The launch of the Cliff Lift may have contributed to the pier company extending the pier. Going up (right) and coming down (left) - geograph

Going up (right) and coming down (left) - geograph

The original cars, which seated 12 passengers, had

stained-glass Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...

windows but when the Cliff Lift was refurbished during 1955, the replacement car bodies had plain glass. The

cars introduced during 1979 were modelled on the original design. The stained-glass windows were reinstated in 1991. The wooden bodies of the passenger cars were refurbished and "

Victorian Victorian or Victorians may refer to: 19th century * Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign ** Victorian architecture ** Victorian house ** Victorian decorative arts ** Victorian fashion ** Victorian literature ...

ised" during 2011 by Stanegate Restorations of Haltwhistle. The tramway was purchased in 1939 by the Saltburn and Marske-by-the-Sea Urban District Council, who replaced the car bodies in 1955, and it is still owned by the local authority (currently the

Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council is the local authority of Redcar and Cleveland. It is a unitary authority A unitary authority is a local authority responsible for all local government functions within its area or performing additional fun ...

). Marks' design for the cliff lift was so good that, that beyond routine maintenance and the occasional refurbishment, little of the mechanism has been changed since its installation during 1884. During winter 1921-2, the track gauge was changed from 3' 9" to 4' 2 1/2". In 1924, an AC electrically-operated water pump was installed to replace the 1913 DC generator and pump arrangement, which had earlier replaced the

coal gas Coal gas is a flammable gaseous fuel made from coal and supplied to the user via a piped distribution system. It is produced when coal is heated strongly in the absence of air. Town gas is a more general term referring to manufactured gaseous ...

-fuelled four-cylinder Crossley-built

internal combustion engine An internal combustion engine (ICE or IC engine) is a heat engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer (usually air) in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an internal co ...

-driven water pump. Between 1997 and 1998, the cliff lift was refitted to comply with modern safety standards. During 1998, the main braking wheel was replaced for the first time by a

hydraulic Hydraulics (from Greek: Υδραυλική) is a technology and applied science using engineering, chemistry, and other sciences involving the mechanical properties and use of liquids. At a very basic level, hydraulics is the liquid counter ...

braking system to complement the original band braking/driving system. From 19 September 2010 to 11 April 2011, the funicular underwent restoration, reportedly costing around £30,000. In spring 2014, the top station was refurbished and restored it to its original design. During late 2017 and early 2018, the cliff lift was closed for a £500,000 restoration programme following an in-service breakdown; mechanical elements were replaced including all sleepers which were changed to steel to prolong the life along with repairs to the existing sleeper concrete supports, rails, cast iron items which were re-cast at a local foundry from the original components, emergency Scotch Timber braking system along with electric control systems and some lighting.Brown, Mike
"133-year-old Saltburn cliff lift to close for £400k refurb after breaking down three times in a year."
''Teesside Live'', 26 September 2017. During its refits and restoration, an emphasis has been placed on retaining original parts; where replacement items have been necessary, they have usually been created in the style of their forbearers. The cliff lift closed in March 2020 due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified ...

. Despite all Covid restrictions being fully eased across England on 19 July 2021, Redcar and Cleveland Council decided not to reopen the cliff lift for the 2021 season, stating that they decided to keep it closed due to Covid safety fears, instead deciding to use the time to give the cliff lift an overhaul, which meant that tourists would only see the tramcars in action during the maintenance tests. Although initially planned to reopen for Easter 2022, the cliff lift reopening was delayed due to an issue with the safety system found during routine maintenance tests. The lift reopened on 2 June 2022, in time for the Queen's Platinum Jubilee Bank Holiday Weekend.

References

External links

Saltburn Cliff Lift

BBC Tees feature on the Saltburn Cliff Lift, including audio narrative of operations
{{coord, 54, 35, 10.46, N, 0, 58, 14.61, W, region:GB, display=title Buildings and structures in Redcar and Cleveland Transport in Redcar and Cleveland Funicular railways in the United Kingdom Railway lines opened in 1884 Works by George Croydon Marks Water-powered funicular railways Saltburn-by-the-Sea