Alas Wells Harbour

The future of the Wells Harbour Railway has come into the spotlight this week, and it looks as though we may lose another classic seaside 10 1/4" gauge railway, hot on the heels of the loss in 2020 of Kerr's Miniature Railway in Arbroath. The reasons for concern at Wells are very different to those at Arbroath. This statement has appeared on the website of landowners Holkham estate:

"The current operator of The Wells Harbour Railway notified Holkham in Autumn 2020 that he wanted to stop running the railway service in the next year or two. He asked Holkham to give him a new 10-year lease so he could sell the equipment and the lease to a new operator."

"The current railway was designed to help holidaymakers at Pinewoods get into town and back to the site in the evening. Today the need is different, to help day-visitors get from their parked car or from the town as close as possible to Wells Beach."

"Over the next 12 months we will involve Wells Town Council and other stakeholders in Wells in discussions about this opportunity to improve the visitor experience. That may involve altering how, where or when the railway runs, or replacing it with other ways for visitors to move to and from the beach and enjoy the best of what the Wells and Holkham area offers."

The railway's current owners, Gary and Alison Bracknell, have responded as follows on the Facebook 10 1/4" gauge group:

"We are the current owners of the Wells Harbour Railway and asked Holkham in October last year to enquire about getting a new 10 year lease on the Railway.

We were told that the lease was NOT GOING to be renewed at the end of its term and subsequently then told by Holkham that they also had no intention of buying the Railway from us."

Reading between the lines, I get the distinct impression that the Holkham estate have the impression that a land train between the town/car park and the beach would be cheaper to run than taking on the railway. No doubt they also feel the cost attraction of avoiding more specialist skills required for track and rolling stock maintenance compared to rubber tyres on a road that someone else maintains... Maybe they also think it is somehow "classier"? But it has no soul, no history, no real sense of adventure. It certainly wouldn't make me want to visit the town.

I first saw the WHR in September 1996, it wasn't operating on that occasion but my notes show that we travelled on the nearly Wells and Walsingham Railway that same day. It was nearly a year later, in June 1997 that I did get to travel on the WHR, behind 'Edmund Hannay' (D. King, 1971).

By 2010 'Edmund Hannay' was out of use, replaced by Alan Keef steam outline locomotives delivered in 1998 and 2005. The Miniature Railway Museum Trust were able to borrow the locomotive for display at the 'Rails to the Sands' exhibition at Cleethorpes, where it sat alongside 15" gauge 'Blacolvesley' and opposite my own 'Shifting Sands'. As Trust secretary I prepared, mailed out and filed the loan agreement. Whilst here the locomotive changed hands, eventually being sold again to the Hastings Miniature Railway.

'Edmund Hannay' had been built for the original owner of the WHR, Commander Roy Francis, who later went on to create the longer W&WLR the other side of town. The original back-up locomotive had been 'Weasel', a simple 4w internal combustion machine (D. King, 1980) that I later saw in the hands of MRW Railways in 2016, before being sold on.

I finally returned to Wells in August 2019, to ride behind 'Howard' (Alan Keef 74, 2005). By this time the railway had three Alan Keef machines plus coaching stock renewed by the same builder. The true transport function of the railway was apparent, when we asked for a return ticket we found they didn't sell them as most passengers did not make a there and back trip in one go! I had questioned why they needed three locomotives but the intensity of the operation was soon apparent.

What may now be my last look at the railway was from the floodbank, looking down at the town end station. From here the basis of the estate's "issue" can be identified, the new town car park is off shot to the right in the distance, the infrastructure changes to move the railway to run there make any change unlikely compared to using rubber tyre on tarmac.

If the end does come I'll be incredibly sad to see the WHR go, a classic seaside line, so simple in it's execution and despite what the land owners think, still doing to job of moving people from A to B, as it has done since 1976.

Colin