Dear Italy. Wouldn't it have been more fitting to have thrown a model cathedral at the Pope and a sc...
Dear Italy. Wouldn't it have been more fitting to have thrown a model cathedral at the Pope and a scarlet woman at Berlusconi?
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The demise of the tram has always seemed a crying shame to me, what with all that ripping up of infrastructure that went on into the mid-1950’s, until Blackpool was ‘last mans standing’, and then more as a tourist attraction than a serious attempt at running public transport. It seems even more ironic that we are now discovering the ‘green credentials’ of trams, and re-stuffing all that infrastructure back into the ground; well, in Manchester, Sheffield, West Midlands and Croydon we have (more London routes are pencilled in by Ken L too)!
The Seaton Tramway of which I write owes a lot to Eastbourne – yes I know it’s 100 miles along the coast in a different county, but the point is this. Eastbourne used to have a miniature tramway as a tourist attraction until pressures from road and housing developments caused its owners to look for another site. Enter the branch line closures of British Rail, in this case, the Seaton Junction to Seaton line via Colyton and Colyford. I should point out that Seaton Junction is NOWHERE near Seaton, it was just the junction from the main line; in fact if it wasn’t the name of the village too, it would no doubt now be known as Seaton Parkway by now!
Please note: Nothing I write here is an endorsement for staying IN Seaton. I went there on a fine sunny day last Spring, and even then it managed to look extremely
down-at-heel (sorry if you live there!). God knows what it'd look like when it's raining! It's Lyme Regis "sans hills, sans 'Cob', sans everything" to my mind.
Negotiations were made, and the Eastbourne Tramway ‘upped-sticks’, or in this case, 'upped sleepers', and moved in thirty lorry-loads to Seaton. They didn’t use the whole length of the branch line’s track-bed, choosing to start 3 miles to the north of Seaton in Colyton, and slightly deviating from the well-trodden path at the Seaton end in a ‘dog-leg’ skirting a very unprepossessing caravan site, that brings the main terminus into easier reach of the town-centre, right next to the main shopper’s car-park. Incidentally, if you park here to make a round-trip on the trams, make sure that you put enough into the meter for AT LEAST two hours.
The 1970 holiday season saw the first tram run on the ‘new’ track bed, albeit towing a battery truck behind it as they hadn’t got as far as erecting the overhead wires at that point*. To be fair, it had taken them only about a year in total to lay three miles of track at a newer gauge of 2’9” (9” inches wider than at Eastbourne), and get the first trams with widened axles up and running.
*Imagine the frustration of getting a tram for Christmas and then finding you need to wait till Boxing Day for Halfords to open so you can buy 50 car-batteries to run it!
THE ROUTE
As I said before, this runs south from Colyton to Seaton, in a more or less straight line. This does not mean that it’s boring. From Colyton through Colyford, you pass through green rolling pasture-land, wait at un-gated level crossings whilst the driver switches the warnings signs on, and, if you’re on the top deck of one of the double-deckers, you get to ‘sticky-beak’ into a lot of back gardens too! From here to the coast, you ride alongside the tidal Axe estuary with all its reed beds and mud-flats. Bird-watchers love it, and the Tramway Company even organise conducted tours with a bird expert on board. The open-top double-deckers are superb platforms for those with binoculars and telephoto lenses and the tram makes several extra stops at strategic viewing points. The line is mostly single track with plenty of passing places. Not all of these cause a tram to wait – it really depends on how frequent a schedule is running. The denser the traffic, the more passing places get waited in.
We rented a cottage on the edge of Colyton, and so rode the route south on a fresh Spring morning on the top-deck. It can get a ‘bit’ breezy up there, so take a pullover. Colyton is fairly easy to find once you locate the correct left turn off the A303 if coming from London. Access from the M5 would require you to turn off at the Taunton exit, and pick your way south through Chard and Axminster. Approaching from Exeter is easier, as you can travel the road to Axminster, subsequently following local signs to Axmouth or Seaton.
Note: The Tramway Company insist that you get off at the distant end, even if you are only going for the round trip. There’s nothing more annoying than have a top-deck load of smug bas****s up from Seaton, looking down on the ever-hopeful assembled populous queuing to get on at Colyton. This way, everyone gets a fair chance of sitting up top, which, let’s face it, is what you’ll most likely want to do on a fine day.
Adults £5.50, (Pension Concession £5.00) and Children £3.85
Unlimited day tickets for the enthusiast that wants to ride more than one kind of tram are also available. Adults Rover £8.25, (Pension Concession £7.45) and Children £5.80.
Family discounts of 10% apply to groups with a ‘two adults to one child ratio’.
The under-4s travel free as long as you are prepared to have them on your lap as the tram fills up with paying passengers. Some of the window sills are pretty high, so they'd probably need to be on your lap to see anything anyway.
Remember, some of these trams are replicas of old ones, so wheel-chair access is not marvellous. However, they actually have one tram equipped to take no less than 12 wheelchairs.
THE TRAMS
These are an eclectic bunch, some having been roughly half scale replicas of famous trams, like the open top single-deck Blackpool ‘Boat’, and the London ‘Feltham’. Then they also have trams from real standard gauge lines (but only single deckers for height reasons). These have been subject to a significant amount of butche......errrr....re-engineering. The ex-London single decker, for example had to be narrowed to make it stable enough to run on track 2 feet narrower than normal, and was subjected to having its whole top deck removed! It now has one row of seats where it previously had two. However, I guess most families will wait for an open-top ‘miniature’ double-decker. Tall adults will instinctively feel the need to duck as they walk along the top deck. That overhead wire seems rather close (Bigbaz please note) although, to be fair, it’s still out of reach.
The Seaton Terminus is probably your best bet for photographing trams, as the loop at the end of the line can frequently be seen with a clutch of trams standing on it, waiting their turn to go back out. The Colyton end is a much quieter affair, usually with only the one tram in the throes of being reversed, although it’s a better spot to snap a tram coming towards you. Best of all would be from one of the level crossings along the line, but that would involve using a car, which rather defeats the object of the exercise!
MORE INFORMATION
The Seaton & District Tramway Company, to give it its full name must have been a bit nifty with their web-site; they actually managed to secure www.tram.co.uk for their URL, which is a bit like the Romney Hythe and Dymchurch miniature line snaffling www.trains.co.uk.
From their web-site, you may book non-standard items, like half and whole day tram driving courses, bird watching trips and other group bookings possibly for ‘No.17’ which can carry wheelchairs and then of course the inevitable ‘Santa Specials’ that all ‘novelty’ lines seem obliged to run, (although any kid knows that the REAL Thomas wasn’t electric!).
Altogether now, in your best Ringo Starr voice – “Oh dear”, said Thomas, “whatever is ‘appeningere? The Fat Controller has plugged me into the mains!”
OTHER STUFF
A round trip on the Seaton Tramway would only really account for a half day. If you’re not actually staying in Seaton (and I'm pushed to think of a reason why you should!) and have detoured to travel this line, then there’s a fighting chance that you like most things that run on rails. Why not travel the short hop along the coast to Beer to visit the headquarters of Peco, the well-known model railway manufacturer. Their ‘Pecorama’ site is almost a theme park in a modest way, but just don’t expect any white knuckle rides (except for your wallet). In these landscaped gardens you’ll find all kinds of railway stuff, like a full sized Pullman car, many model railway layouts, some outdoors, and plenty of those ‘retail moments’ that us lads never seem to get elsewhere whilst on a family holiday, although the principle of waiting patiently outside gift shops and jewellers I’m well acquainted with!
That’s probably why I associate with dogs, even though we haven’t got one. I look down at the dog tied to the ice-cream placard and think, “you too, eh, mate?”
Pictures of Devon (England)
Approaching Seaton Tramway Terminus
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I live near Seaton and 'down at heel' doesn't even begin to describe it - in fact, I just made a typo and wrote 'down at hell' which is more accurate! If you're in the area, do 'hop along' to neighbouring Beer and Branscombe for picturesque scenery, beautiful beaches and country walks. Seaton may have been a lovely holiday town in years gone by, but it's just tacky, dull and full of pensioners now.
Leigh :-)
Morgenhund 21.02.2004 16:40
Top op! I am very familiar with the area - used to spend tracts of summer holidays in that neck of the woods with my grandparents - can remember frequent trips to Pecorama, Seaton Tramway, and there was some kind of animal park called Farway - if I remember correctly... Nostaglia over... Mike
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Feb 11th, 2004
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