Eric Stuart reveals how two railway companies created short distance, local solutions that helped motorists to navigate otherwise time consuming water crossings.
Many readers will remember the Motorail era on British Railways. Most of these services predated the expansion of motorways, when long journeys by road could be tedious and many involved overnight stops, which would now be considered unnecessary. However, there were much earlier examples of services too – not all conventional – dealing with particular interruptions to the road network, where rail played a part in providing a solution. The first service is comparatively well-known, the others less so.
A cursory look at a map of the British Isles will show that a direct route between London and South Wales is hindered by the estuary of the River Severn. That estuary is known for its extreme tides, including a phenomenon called the Severn bore, a type of tidal wave that sweeps up the river at certain times. Ferries have existed in the past, even as far back as Roman times, the most recent being one that conveyed vehicles between Aust and Beachley, both in Gloucestershire, which the river divides. The last-mentioned vehicle ferry operated between 1926 and 1966, but could be disrupted by river conditions. In any case, on a daily basis the ferry could not operate at extreme high and low water; also the ferry could only take about a dozen cars per trip. It was thus not the most reliable of routes. Driving on and off was not easy either – a short, 30 second video in the Huntly Archive shows the problems: (611) Aust Ferry or Beachley Ferry crossing the River Severn, 1930�
