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v t e Grimsby and Immingham Electric Railway
Legend
Barton & Immingham Lt Rly to Ulceby and Goxhill Immingham Dock Dock entrance to Ulceby Immingham Eastern Jetty Immingham Dock Eastern Entrance to Immingham Dock Immingham Engine Shed Immingham Queens Rd Immingham Town Immingham Halt Kiln Lane Marsh Road LC No.6 Passing Place No.5 Passing Place No.4 Passing Place Great Coates LC Pyewipe Depot Halt & Pyewipe car sheds Cleveland Bridge Great Grimsby and Sheffield Junction Rly Grimsby Pyewipe Road West & East Marsh Junctions to Grimsby Pier Cleveland Street Stortford Street Boulevard Recreation Ground Jackson Street Grimsby Town Yarborough Street Corporation Bridge East Lincolnshire Rlwy to Boston to Cleethorpes and Grimsby Pier

v t e Passenger lines of North East Lincolnshire
Legend
Hull Corporation Pier Barton- on-Humber Humber Ferry Barrow Haven New Holland Pier New Holland engine shed New Holland Town New Holland Goxhill East Halton Killingholme Admiralty Platform Thornton Abbey Killingholme Thornton Curtis Immingham West Jn Humber Road Jn Immingham Western Jetty Ulceby Aerodrome Platform Eastfield Road Ulceby North Jn Immingham Dock Ulceby Dock Entrance Immingham engine shed Immingham Eastern Jetty Immingham Queens Road Immingham Dock Immingham Town Eastern Entrance to Immingham Dock Sheffield– Lincoln line & South Humberside Main Line Immingham Halt Habrough Kiln Lane Stallingborough Marsh Road LC Healing No.5 Passing Place Great Coates Great Coates LC Pyewipe Depot Halt Pyewipe car sheds Cleveland Bridge Grimsby Pyewipe Road West Marsh Jn East Marsh Jn Cleveland Street Stortford Street Grimsby Town Boulevard Recreation Ground East Lincolnshire Rlwy to Boston Jackson Street Grimsby engine shed Yarborough Street Grimsby Docks Corporation Bridge Grimsby Pier Riby Street Platform New Clee Cleethorpes Kingsway (CCLR) Discovery Lakeside Central North Sea Lane Humberston North Sea Lane Beach South Sea Lane Lincolnshire Coast Lt Rly 1960–1985

Immingham (Queens Road) electric railway station would have been a halt on the Grimsby and Immingham Electric Railway, but it never opened to fare paying passengers. Electrified track was laid to the station site and quarterly proving cars ran for nearly twentyfive years, but no revenue-earning car ever travelled to or from the halt.

Overview

The electric railway was built primarily to carry workers between Grimsby and Immingham Dock which the Great Central Railway had built on a greenfield site in a sparsely populated area. The line was built by the Great Central and remained in railway ownership up to closure in 1961. It therefore appeared in railway timetables and it was possible to buy through tickets between any of the stops on the line and anywhere on the national railway network, though there never was any physical connection with any conventional track, nor with the tramways in Grimsby and Cleethorpes.

In modern parlance the vehicles would be described as trams, but they were typically referred to locally as "tramcars", with related things being called names such as "tramcar halt" and "tramcar bridge" with "car" a more common short form than "tram."

Location and facilities

Immingham Town - known locally as "Tramcar Halt" - was situated outside the dock estate in what in 2012 was still open country. It was the nearest point to the line for its two lesser markets - railwaymen travelling to and from Immingham engine shed and residents of the village of Immingham, by far the greatest market being dock workers. The station was nevertheless a third of a mile from the engine shed and a good mile from the village proper.

When the line was proposed it included plans to continue from Immingham Town southwest along Queens Road to a point near the footpath to engine shed, or "Loco" as it was called locally. A 1966 aerial photograph shows a single decker bus in the near foreground very close to where the tramcar halt would have been.

When the line was completed in 1913 the extension was omitted. Influential fingers were wagged so the company grudgingly built it to what would have been Queens Road Halt. The extension was single track with a passing loop at the halt. Proving tramcars ran along the extension every quarter to maintain the right of way, but no revenue earning vehicle ever traversed it. The overhead wires and points were removed in the Second World War and all trace of the unused branch had gone by 1955.

Services

Unusually among British tramways, services ran round the clock, particularly to provide for railway workers based at Immingham engine shed, whose duties often involved starting or finishing at unsocial hours. Traffic was highly peaked, with convoys of tramcars leaving and arriving to match shift changes at the dock. It was normal for several tramcars to queue to reverse at Immingham Town at the peaks.

Herein lay some of the reasons the Great Central never followed through with their stated intention of running cars to Queen Road, still less to Immingham Village beyond, as was implied in some earlier publicity and repeatedly requested by Immingham Parish Council. By a large margin the line's key market was dock workers, with railway staff a distant second and Immingham villagers a distant third. While these last would have paid fares, railway staff never did throughout the line's existence, so running tracks and services would be hopelessly uneconomic. Furthermore, travelling through to Queens Road or the village would have added significant time and potential disruption to the core users' journeys, with no benefit to them whatsoever.

Closure

The line took some years to die, being cut back at the Grimsby end in 1956 then reduced to peak services only in 1959, when it disappeared from Bradshaw and through ticketing beyond the line was withdrawn. Formal closure of the line and Immingham Town tramcar halt came on Monday 3 July 1961, with the last tramcars running on Saturday 1 July 1961, when a convoy of six cars set off from Immingham Dock, nominally at 14:03. The last tramcar of this convoy and therefore the last from Immingham Town was Number 4.

Aftermath

The first track on the line to be removed was at Dock tramcar station, to give increased parking space. The process of demolition was piecemeal and even in 2013 many hints of the line remained, such as spun concrete masts near Immingham Town.

References

1. ^ Dow 1965, p. 242.
2. ^ Price 1991, p. 76.
3. Bradshaw 1985, p. 717.
4. Price 1991, p. 112.
5. Price 1991, p. 69.
6. King & Hewins 1989, Photo 43.
7. ^ Price 1991, p. 77.
8. WEA 1994, p. 24.
9. Price 1991, p. 74.
10. Bates & Bairstow 2005, p. 85.
11. Skelsey 2011, p. 239.
12. Price 1991, p. 102.

Sources

• Bates, Chris; Bairstow, Martin (2005). Railways in North Lincolnshire. Leeds: Martin Bairstow. ISBN 978-1-871944-30-3.
• Bradshaw, George (1985) . Bradshaw's General Railway and Steam Navigation guide for Great Britain and Ireland: A reprint of the July 1922 issue. Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 978-0-7153-8708-5. OCLC 12500436.
• Dow, George (1965). Great Central, Volume Three: Fay Sets the Pace, 1900–1922. Shepperton: Ian Allan. ISBN 978-0-7110-0263-0. OCLC 500447049.
• King, Paul K.; Hewins, Dave R. (1989). Scenes from the Past: 5 The Railways around Grimsby, Cleethorpes, Immingham and North-east Lincolnshire. Stockport: Foxline Publishing. ISBN 978-1-870119-04-7.
• Price, J. H. (1991). The Tramways of Grimsby, Immingham & Cleethorpes. Light Rail Transit Association. ISBN 978-0-948106-10-1.
• Skelsey, Geoffrey (April 2011). Blakemore, Michael (ed.). "Flirting with the enemy, Railway Operated Electric Tramways in the United Kingdom". Back Track. 25 (4). Easingwold: Atlantic Publishers. ISSN 0955-5382.
• WEA (1994). Immingham - the way we were : more memories of a marsh village. Immingham: WEA. ISBN 978-0-9524259-2-2.

Further material

• Anderson, Paul (1992). Railways of Lincolnshire. Oldham: Irwell Press. ISBN 978-1-871608-30-4.
• Bett, W. H.; Gillham, J. C. (1979). The Tramways of South Yorkshire and Humberside. London: Light Railway Transport League. ISBN 978-0-900433-75-7.
• Feather, T. (February 1993). "Great Central Inter-Urban". Forward. Great Central Railway Society. ISSN 0141-4488.
• Ludlam, A.J. (July 2006). Kennedy, Rex (ed.). "Immingham-Gateway to the Continent". Steam Days (203). Bournemouth: Redgauntlet Publications. ISSN 0269-0020.
• Ludlam, A.J. (1996). Railways to New Holland and the Humber Ferries, LP 198. Headington: The Oakwood Press. ISBN 978-0-85361-494-4.
• Electric Traction Archive (DVD), vol. 118, B&R Video Productions, contains a fine archive section on the tramway
• The Passing of Pyewipe (DVD), Online Video, available via Great Central Railway Society, solely about the tramways of Immingham, Grimsby & Cleethorpes

External links

• Immingham as a green field site before the dock National Library of Scotland
• Immingham Town on an inter-War OS map National Library of Scotland
• Immingham Queens Road tramcar halt on an OS map surveyed in 1930 National Library of Scotland
• The station Rail Map Online
• The Grimsby & Immingham Tramway www.lner.info
• Tramway photos davesrailpics
• The Tramway Local Transport History Soc
• Tramway remains Thorne Railway
• Tramcar at Immingham Town geograph
• The site of the halt from the air Britain from Above

• Disused railway stations in the Borough of North East Lincolnshire
• Former Great Central Railway stations
• 1915 establishments in England
• Immingham
• Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1915
• Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1961