“TOY” RAIL SERVICE

Evening Star, Issue 19523, 2 April 1927, Page 15

“TOY” RAIL SERVICE

HOVEL KENTISH LINE A FIFTEEH’INGH TRACK What has every appearance of a “toy” railway system is Captain J. E. P,. Howay’s laihvay, which Jig is building from New Romney to Hythe, Kent. The incorpoialed title of the system is the Romney, Hytbo, and Dymchurch Railway, of which General Sir Ivor Maxse is tho chairman, hut Captain Howey is so much tho mainspring of the whole thin" that it is already known as “ Captain Howey’s Railway.” The station at New Romney has a four-lino track running between two platforms, each about 17yds Jong, complete with waiting rooms, booking office, station master’s office, and porters’ room, all built to a scale of cncthird the normal, except in entrances and height. Just behind is a six-track siding, with tho southern main line track, looking grotesquely huge, bordering in for the convenient transfer of goods. On the way down tho lino to sheds, fitting shops, and stores _ one passes under the main signal bridge, the cross bar of which can bo touched without stretching one’s arm up to full length. Nearby is tho signal box, a tiny cabin about the size of two wardrobes, fitted with seventeen levers. Then there is tho turntable, which an athlete could jump across with ease, and the water tank, not very much larger than the cistern familiar to householders. POWERFUL LITTLE LOCOMOTIVE, A recent visitor to the loco, shed saw “ The Green Goddess ” stripped for repairs and “The Northern Chief” waiting under the patent quick steam raiser device ready for more hard work, each an engineering wonder They weigh only eight tons, while tho ordinary loco, turns the scale at more than 100 tons. For stunt purposes Mr llardio, traffic manager, said these little engines can travel at fifty miles an hour, but it is not intended to run them, with a train of twenty-five coaches, at more than thirty miles an hour on the express services and from twenty to twenty-five ou slow trains. They are exact replicas at a scaled one-third of the Great Northern Pacific type of engine, and the coaches and trucks, scores of which are already available for use, are also to tho scale of one-third. Four people can bo accommodated in each compartment. There are open coaches for summer use and closed for winter. Fitted with cushions, they are also steam-heated. CONTRACTS FOR GOODS. Tho rolling stock is carried over a 15in gauge track, which is tho only double track of its size iu England, and Mr Hardio estimates that tho running costs will reach only one-twentieth of those of the largo railways. “We expect to open early in June,” Mr Hardie said, “ and 1 shall be surprised if wo do not speedily reach an annual passenger traffic of 250,000, “We are negotiating with the Kent County Council for the haulage of crushed stone from their works at Jlythe to New Romney; and if we get tho contract, as I feel sure we shall, we shall carry from 10,000 to 20,000 tons of crushed stone over our railway every year. “Captain Howey organised the railway to demonstrate that a light railway can he of considerable service in places like this, where it is impossible for a heavy railway to run. And in the building he is employing only local labor All these buildings were put up by local unskilled laborers, and they did their own casting of tho cement blocks.” Five and a-quarter miles of tho track have been laid from New Romney, and work has. begun from the Hythe end. Since Captain Howey gave up motor racing—ho used to he one of the most familiar figures at Rrooklands—lie has devoted the whole of his time to his Lilliputian railway.