If you have ever been a visitor to Brighton then you will have probably strolled along Madeira Drive where you will almost certainly have seen Volk's railway. Volk's Railway was the first electric railway to be constructed in England. It's quite a modest little railway but it was once part of a much grander scheme, for there was a time when Volk's railway ran all the way along the coast to Rottingdean, and it was very unusual because the track, for the most part, was under the sea, and the carriage travelled above the surface of the water on long 'stilt like' legs.
Much of the track has been obliterated by the building of the Marina but there are still remains to be seen a little further to the east.
As a young lad I used to come and play down here quite a lot actually and there were these curious stones or 'stepping stones' as we used to call them.I don't ever remember wondering what they were for, but as I've grown older and have become much more curious about them I now realise that they are of course the remains of the old Rottingdean Railway track.
The track is only exposed at low tide and this must have posed quite a few problems for its construction. The time that you get to explore down here is quite limited so it must have been the same for the builders of the track.
Magnus Volk was a very clever man who was really keen on exploiting the power of the 'new' electricity. In fact he believed that electricity was going to be the next big thing, well as it turns out he was right ! Magnus installed a steam powered electric generator at the Rottingdean end of the track and the electric cable was carried aloft by these wooden posts, the stumps of which can still be seen to this day.
Here we see Rottingdean Pier where the passengers used to alight after their Sea Voyage on Wheels!
The trip would start from the Banjo Groyne at Kemp Town and then proceed to Rottingdean at not much more than a walking pace for which you would be charged the princely sum of sixpence each way.
Magnus named his creation the 'Pioneer' (soon nicknamed Daddy Longlegs) and it proved to be a great success with his public. Sadly though, it only ran for a very few years, mainly due to the fact that it was operating in such a harsh environment, but its memory lives on in that little electric railway that still runs along the length of Madeira Drive.
Extracted from 'In Search of Daddy Longlegs'The story of the Rottingdean Seashore Railwayby Richard Shaw.
DVD Available fromR.Shaw, 13 Aberdeen Road, Brighton, Sussex, bn2 3ja.(running time 30 minutes)Price £8.50 + £2.00 p+pricky@bn23ja.freeserve.co.uk
The Rottingdean Seashore Railway
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