Britain at low tide.

[mills-bomb]

Did anyone else watch this last night?.

Wow! Was totally unaware that the Worlds first ro/ro railway ferry was in use in 1917 for war use.

[stiletto_33853]

Yes, very interesting programme. Knew about Richborough Port but not to the extent it grew to.

 

Andy

[mills-bomb]

7 hours ago, stiletto_33853 said:

Yes, very interesting programme. Knew about Richborough Port but not to the extent it grew to.

rso

Andy

Did i hear right, did they quote a figure of 20,000 personnel?

[EAST YORKSHIRE]

On 15/09/2019 at 18:27, mills-bomb said:

Did i hear right, did they quote a figure of 20,000 personnel?

Yes MB 20,000 odd . I found it very interesting also. Ian.

[NigelS]

On 15/09/2019 at 10:38, mills-bomb said:

Did anyone else watch this last night?.

Wow! Was totally unaware that the Worlds first ro/ro railway ferry was in use in 1917 for war use.

 

My understanding is that the first railway  Ro-Ro ferries transported goods wagons (& occasionally coaches) across the Forth & Tay estuaries before these were bridged in the latter part of the 19th century. Between 1885 & 1888, having become redundant in Scotland, one of these ferries was used for a short lived & financially unsuccessful service between Langstone, Hayling Island and Bembridge Harbour on the Isle of Wight. See Langstone – IOW Train Ferry (the 'linkspan' illustrations given, although showing a much cruder version, appears to have worked in much the same way as the one installed at Richborough) For the story of how the former GW railway ferry facilities were used to set up the post-war Harwich-Zeebrugge rail ferry service see The Harwich Train Ferries.  The surviving Richborough linkspan now at Harwich & shown in the programme  is Historic England grade II listed (Train Ferry Berth list entry 1187897)

 

NigelS

Edited 17 September , 2019 by NigelS
clarification

[MerchantOldSalt]

On ‎15‎/‎09‎/‎2019 at 10:38, mills-bomb said:

Did anyone else watch this last night?.

Wow! Was totally unaware that the Worlds first ro/ro railway ferry was in use in 1917 for war use.

Whilst NigelS has the right of it as far as British Train Ferries are concerned, though the linkspans or bridges were actually quite different in design, the War Department Cross Channel Train Ferries of 1917 were by no means the World's first train ferries.  These ships had been operating in many countries for many years the first being across the Nile in Egypt and also in America, Canada, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Russia, Italy, Argentina, Cuba, India and Japan to name several.  The concept, however, was due to the ingenuity of British Engineers at first though the train ferry up to WW1 had not been much used in its country of origin.  

 

When the idea that a train ferry might ease the supply situation to the Western Front and beyond was first brought to the attention of the War Office by Sir Guy Granet (DGMR), who had been prodded with the idea by Sir Arthur Follett Holt Chairman of the Rosario & Entre Rios Railway in Argentina which ran train ferries, that body of men sensibly asked for what would now be called a feasibility study to be carried out with information gleaned from the operation of the rest of the world's train ferries.  This over 100 page, very detailed report, was produced by W E Simnett who worked for the Institute of Civil Engineers and at the time a 2nd Lieutenant in the IWT Section of the Royal Engineers, and he did it in just a week apparently, and without a mobile phone or computer too.  The report was necessary as there were many against the concept, the Admiralty, of course, and strangely the Shipping Controller.  The Admiralty with their perceived huge knowledge of the operation of Merchant Shipping stated that the Strait of Dover and English Channel were far to rough to contemplate running train ferries as the ships were "inherently unstable", the American crews who ran the ferries  across Lake Michigan, with a much longer voyage and on a potentially far more storm tossed piece of water would have found that comment ludicrous, however Simnett's report helped overcome the prejudices and the train ferries came into existence, but not the first.  They were highly successful though late in the day.

 

Tony

Edited 17 September , 2019 by MerchantOldSalt

[Terry_Reeves]

Nice piece Tony.

 

The construction of the railway sidings and the linkspans and the Ro-Ro jetties fell to Lt Colonel  William Lowe Lowe Brown RE (yes two Lowe's).  He had considerable construction experience  including work on the construction of the Central London Railway and the Asswan Dam in Egypt. in 1905 he was one of two resident engineers South America relating to railways and was responsible for the underground system in Beunos Aries. He later moved to the USA where he was a resident engineers employed by the Pennsylvania Railway , building tunnels under the river Hudson responsible for constructing tunnels under the River Hudson. At Richborough, apart from the construction work, he was also Commandant of the construction camp and overall supervision of some 2,000 men. When construction finished at Richborough he was transferred to the Admiralty Works Department with responsibilty for the construction of the so-called "mystery towers" at Southwick in Sussex.

 

Another interesting man involved with Richborough was Major Montague Gluckstein RE. Gluckstien was not a construction engineer however, but a caterer. He was related by marriage to Joe Lyons of teashop fame and was a founding partner of the company and later chairman.

 

During the early days of construction at Richborough an inspection by a senior officer found that conditions regarding catering was poor and Gluckstien was brought in from the Lyon's catering chain as a Major  and catering officer. When he arrived he found that there were  numerous cookhouses scattered around the site, feeding 3,000 men. This proved to be inefficient and wasteful as far as food was concerned. Assisted by Henry Atwell who he brought with him from Lyons Company, he set about reorganising the site. This included the establishment of three large mess hall's, new catering equipment and central kitchens.  He was awarded the MBE for his work there.

 

TR

 

 

 

 

Edited 17 September , 2019 by Terry_Reeves