Trains on boats....

[Guest]

Sort of a boating topic but stumbled across this video tonight. I have a very vauge recollection of travelling to France as a young child on a passenger service from Dover and being loaded on to a ferry on a train.

 

I didnt realise that freight services ran so recently.

 

Anybody else rememember getting a train to France pre Eurotunnel/Eurostar?

 

 

[matty40s]

 

[matty40s]

Waterloo to Southampton, Venice Simplon Orient Express ..

 

[David Schweizer]

As a lad back in the 1950's , I remember the Golden Arrow train which left Victoria Station in London every day at 2pm arriving in Paris at something like 10.00pm. Not that I ever travelled on it, as it was a luxury Pullman train. I think it went on until the 1970's,

[IanM]

Train ferries operated from Harwich until 1987.

 

http://www.harwichanddovercourt.co.uk/train-ferry-service/

 

The linkspan is still there as is the mooring pier and most of the rails leading up to it.

 

 

The image below is an enlarged portion of a picture I took whilst heading back into Harwich on the ferry from Holland a year or so ago.

 

Edited March 12, 2021 by IanM

[Athy]

I think the last one was The Night Ferry out of Victoria. Certainly there were "train ferries" with rails where you'd now have car decks, in the '60s. 

[John Liley]

In 1960, or 61, I was a young shaver who worked for Peter Haward, who delivered yachts (by sea) for a living. We got a job to move a schooner from Naples to the Canary Islands and the start of it all were the train tickets we got for a late evening departure in sleeping cars from London (Victoria, I think) to Naples. I remember still the laborious shunting  and shaking of our carriage onto a ferry at Dover (I think), the clanging of the buffers, the shouts and curses of the gentlemen who, beneath, us shackled us down securely once we were on the ship. 

 

There was a similar scenario at Calais, or maybe Boulogne (it was long, long ago).Then, just as we had got off to sleep again there was the arrival of further people to check our passports and ask complicated questions. On either side of the journey our trains were steam-hauled, not by gleaming locomotives as are seen on preserved routes nowadays, but by filthy ones, leaking steam in the wrong places and inclined to run, not just late, but extremely late..

 

Coming back from the Canaries, we took a ferry to Cadiz, then got arrested on the train finto Madrid for not having visas. The yachting voyage itself was comparatively straightforward.

Edited March 12, 2021 by John Liley
Mis-spelling (as ever)

[Ray T]

There was also the “Hydro” in Norway in WWIl.

Made famous in the film Hero’s of Telemark.

[Murflynn]

9 hours ago, David Schweizer said:

As a lad back in the 1950's , I remember the Golden Arrow train which left Victoria Station in London every day at 2pm arriving in Paris at something like 10.00pm. Not that I ever travelled on it, as it was a luxury Pullman train. I think it went on until the 1970's,

 

I travelled on the overnight sleeper boat train from London to Paris in 1971.  It was the worst train journey ever.   It seemed to take for ever to load the carriage onto the ferry, and it felt as if the train was being shunted around, back and forward, jerking and banging, for ages.  No chance of sleeping.

[Guest]

18 minutes ago, Murflynn said:

 

I travelled on the overnight sleeper boat train from London to Paris in 1971.  It was the worst train journey ever.   It seemed to take for ever to load the carriage onto the ferry, and it felt as if the train was being shunted around, back and forward, jerking and banging, for ages.  No chance of sleeping.

 

That's what they used to do to get all the train on the ferry apparently. Break it up into sections and shunt it aboard. There is a video on you tube of the last one in Europe which runs to Sicily from the Italian mainland. It takes 20 minutes min. at each end to load and unload it, all for a 3.5 mile crossing!

 

Understandably people are asking why not just have a foot ferry with a station at each side.

 

 

Edited March 13, 2021 by The Happy Nomad

[max's son]

Wagons loaded onto barges in sweden back in the 60's

[Mac of Cygnet]

And there's also boats on trains...........

I've put this pic up before, so apologies.  The first time I saw my boat on a train in Leeds station I was crouched down taking photographs and gibbering to other passengers "That's my boat! That's my boat!" as they carefully backed away.  I've travelled with my boat on a train many times since, over the years.

 

 

 

 

[Pluto]

There were several across the Rhine in the Netherlands and Germany.

[Mike Todd]

2 hours ago, Murflynn said:

 

I travelled on the overnight sleeper boat train from London to Paris in 1971.  It was the worst train journey ever.   It seemed to take for ever to load the carriage onto the ferry, and it felt as if the train was being shunted around, back and forward, jerking and banging, for ages.  No chance of sleeping.

I have long thought that the operators of all 'sleeping' trains should be sued for misrepresentation.

[ditchcrawler]

11 hours ago, Athy said:

I think the last one was The Night Ferry out of Victoria. Certainly there were "train ferries" with rails where you'd now have car decks, in the '60s. 

From the net

"The Night Ferry was an international boat train from London Victoria to Paris Gare du Nord that crossed the English Channel on a train ferry. It ran from 1936 until 1939 when it ceased due to the onset of World War II. It resumed in 1947, ceasing in 1980."

 

 

Lots of info here on Train ferries http://www.harwichanddovercourt.co.uk/train-ferry-service/

Edited March 13, 2021 by ditchcrawler

[Athy]

8 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

From the net

"The Night Ferry was an international boat train from London Victoria to Paris Gare du Nord that crossed the English Channel on a train ferry. It ran from 1936 until 1939 when it ceased due to the onset of World War II. It resumed in 1947, ceasing in 1980."

 

 

 

I remember seeing the illuminated "Night Ferry" sign, with a moon and stars I think, above its dedicated platform (Platform 1 I think) at Victoria in the 1970s. I never travelled on it, though I did once go on the 'Golden Arrow'.

Edited March 13, 2021 by Athy

[GUMPY]

What I think was one of the last train ferrys in Europe, Puttgarden-Rodbyhaven, closed in 2019. Used it many times but never on the train, it was alway odd watching the train being loaded. 

Edited March 13, 2021 by Loddon

[Athy]

This topic is becoming an excellent nostalgia trip. looking up "Night Ferry" led me to a link to an article about the Dover-Calais ferry 'Invicta', on which I remember travelling in the early '70s. She was quite a veteran, and had a brass plaque inside commemorating her war service.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Loddon said:

What I think was one of the last train ferrys in Europe, Puttgarden-Rodbyhaven, closed in 2019. Used it many times but never on the train, it was alway odd watching the train being loaded. 

 

 

The last one currently running in Europe is this one. Mentioned last night it runs from the Italian mainland to Sicily. Fast forward to 20 mins in for the loading of the train.

 

 

 

[GUMPY]

I did say one of the last.?

[Athy]

8 minutes ago, The Happy Nomad said:

 

The last one currently running in Europe is this one. Mentioned last night it runs from the Italian mainland to Sicily. Fast forward to 20 mins in for the loading of the train.

 

 

 

This is a great pity: it looks as if the train ferry is on the verge of following the restaurant car into history. As far as I know, there are no longer any silver-service restaurant cars on British railways, mot having been replaced by trolleys which trundle up and down the carriages getting in the bloody way.

[John Liley]

Memory comes back to me. The ferry journey I described earlier, from 1960, was between Dover and Dunkerque. It persisted through the  late 1970s at least. 

 

Air fares then were very high, so a common experience for back-packers and the like, returning to England, was to head for the spooky Gare du Nord in Paris, from which at 10 pm the boat train left for Dunkerque. Its make-up consisted of many carriages for those rich enough to have booked a sleeper, plus a further single one up front into which the rest of the us packed ourselves to a point at which the corridor seemed about to burst.

 

The whole thing tootled along for a near-eternity before a laborious bit of shunting took place. The sleeping carriages were loaded on board while those in the single one were ejected , then made to walk to the ferry. A further long wait followed before the ship put to sea for her low-speed trundle to Dover.There a routine stopping train to London sat for a couple of hours or so, with the previous day's newspapers strewn around the floor. It was good for us, I suppose. Character building, and all that.

[Athy]

1 minute ago, John Liley said:

Memory comes back to me. The ferry journey I described earlier, from 1960, was between Dover and Dunkerque. It persisted through the  late 1970s at least. 

 

Air fares then were very high, so a common experience for back-packers and the like, returning to England, was to head for the spooky Gare du Nord in Paris, from which at 10 pm the boat train left for Dunkerque. Its make-up consisted of many carriages for those rich enough to have booked a sleeper, plus a further single one up front into which the rest of the us packed ourselves to a point at which the corridor seemed about to burst.

 

The whole thing tootled along for a near-eternity before a laborious bit of shunting took place. The sleeping carriages were loaded on board while those in the single one were ejected , then made to walk to the ferry. A further long wait followed before the ship put to sea for her low-speed trundle to Dover.There a routine stopping train to London sat for a couple of hours or so, with the previous day's newspapers strewn around the floor. It was good for us, I suppose. Character building, and all that.

That does bring back memories. For years, the standard overnight services from London to Paris went via Dover and Dunkirk - why they didn't go Dover-Calais I don't know, perhaps the longer sea crossing gave us the chance to have a longer sleep. 

   At some point, B.R. decided that overnight services should go via Newhaven and Dieppe - it appeared to make sense as, on the map, London, Newhaven, Dieppe and Paris were pretty much in a straight line. When you got to Dieppe, there was the train waiting on the quayside, only a few yards from the ship, so we all walked over to it and went back to sleep.

   That, of course, was messed up when (in the '90s?) Dieppe port was remodelled and there was no longer a Dieppe Maritime station. Instead, the poor old passengers had to hoof it across town to Dieppe Ville (don't even think of trying to get a driver for a shuttle-bus at four in the morning. Mrs. Athy and I lived in Sussex in the '90s and used the Newhaven services when we could, but they were hampered by the fact that the shipping line (Stena?) was too stingy to allocate more than two ferries to the route, so there weren't many sailings and they tended to leave at peculiar times. Thje terminus was a bit od a poor relation too, just a waiting room with vending machines, no café or bar.

[bizzard]

In 1972 a bunch of us went on a package deal holiday cruise on the Black Sea, on a Clarksons inclusive deal. We flew on a Danair Comet 4b ex BOAC. I remember going to the toilet in which was an emergency escape door, all uninsulated, I could see the sky all around it with thick ice, it was nippy in there. Peering from a window I could see pop rivets in the wing with bits of broken off matchsticks stuck in the holes. The cruise ship was an ex German converted freighter call MV Transylvania. Anyway talking of air fares in the 1970's, the complete package deal was £38 each and first class cabins on the ship too!!! We did get a bit fed up with Goulash and a single apple for afters.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Loddon said:

I did say one of the last.?

 

Indeed, I wasnt in anyway correcting what you were saying, I just happened to stumble across that video last night and he mentioned it was the last remaining one. I think he also mentions that the last two were in Italy but that the other one is now no longer running, leaving the one featured in his video.