Why the Channel Islands abandoned rail travel

A Jersey company is hoping to bring train travel back to the island for the first time in nearly 90 years.

It would be the first time either of the two largest Channel Islands has had a passenger railway since the 1930s, so why did rail travel fall out of favour?

Local historian Ken Baker said the islands’ small size and hard granite rock made it difficult to run trains or trams economically, especially once motorised buses became available.

Mr Baker said buses “literally took over, took the passengers off the trains”.

Jersey’s first railway opened in 1870, from the island’s capital in St Helier to St Aubin – a distance of 3.75 miles (6km), according to transport historian John Carman.

It offered hourly services, later increased to half-hourly, and its popularity was boosted by attractions at stations – such as concerts, acrobatic displays and fireworks.

A second railway – the Jersey Eastern Railway – opened three years later, while a freight railway was opened in 1884, Mr Carman said.

Despite promising passenger numbers – it carried 600,000 people in its first year – the Jersey Railway struggled financially and the company declared bankruptcy in 1874, passing through a series of owners after that.

Over on Guernsey, after several failed attempts to open a railway, the island launched a steam tramway in 1879 between its capital St Peter Port and the industrial area of St Sampson, according to Mr Carman.

As in Jersey, the service was popular initially, carrying about 2,000 passengers a day along the 2.5 mile (4km) route.

It was later electrified in the 1890s, one of the first in the British Isles to do so.

Guernsey launched its first motor bus service in 1909, a few months before Jersey, at first as a feeder route to the tramway.

However, by the early 1920s buses had started to become cheaper and more popular than trains or trams, denting profits.

Buses were able to operate over a wider area, while expanding the rail networks was impractical and expensive because of the islands’ steep inclines and hard granite, Mr Baker said.

In Jersey, the line to St Aubin had been built on the edge of the beach, using wooden viaducts and exposed track beds to reduce costs. This made it vulnerable to erosion and costly to maintain.

Rusting overhead wires and poles pushed up costs in Guernsey, along with aging carriages, Mr Carman said.

The Guernsey Railway Company also lost thousands on the ill-fated purchase of a cargo ship, the SS Ravensdale, which it mistakenly hoped would generate extra income.

The Jersey Eastern Railway closed in 1929, followed by Guernsey’s trams in 1934.

The original Jersey Railway survived until 1936, when a fire at the St Aubin station destroyed 16 carriages and much of the station.

The cost of replacing them was too high, so Jersey’s first railway service was cancelled for the final time.

While the 1930s marked the final time passenger trains would run in Jersey or Guernsey, it was not quite the end for rail, according to tour guide Tim Osborne.

During World War Two, occupying German forces built several light railways on Jersey, Guernsey and Alderney to help them move building materials, ammunition and supplies around the islands.

Mr Osborne said: “During 1941, they started needing crushed stone for concrete to [build fortifications].”

The German railways were dismantled at the end of the war, Mr Osborne said, with the trains being scrapped.

Although it no longer has any full-sized railways, Guernsey does have a miniature trainline at Sausmarez Manor, which opened in 1985.

The family-friendly attraction, known as The Little Train, goes through a quarter of a mile (0.4 km) of woodland, surrounded by children’s teddies.

Unlike its larger siblings, Alderney, the third-largest Channel Island with a population of about 2,000, still has a working railway – although it only operates on Saturdays during summer as a tourist attraction.

Opened in 1847, it was the first railway in the Channel Islands and was originally built to take stone from local quarries to build – and later maintain – the island’s breakwater at Braye Harbour.

Mr Baker, who is treasurer of the Alderney Railway Society, said it was converted in 1980 to a part-time passenger line run by volunteers, including Wombles author Elisabeth Beresford.

The railway, which has three stations, uses old diesel engines and a pair of London Underground carriages from the 1950s, Mr Baker said.

The railway’s connection with children’s characters does not stop with the Wombles, he added.

It was also the inspiration for one of the Thomas the Tank Engine stories – Percy Takes the Plunge – which was based on an incident in 1911 when a train overshot the end of the seaweed-covered line and plunged into the sea.

So with Alderney having a working railway and Jersey considering bringing back theirs, what is the likelihood Guernsey’s trams could return?

“Not a chance,” said Mr Carman.

“It’s a numbers game, you have to have a certain number of people using it all the time… those numbers could never work in Guernsey.”