The mayor of Havant, Councillor Leah Turner, kindly formally ‘unveiled’ the restored signal on the 17th October 2015. This signal was the up-home signal which was operated by lever No. 2 in the bridge signal box. It was originally installed in 1951 to replace an earlier signal. The signal is in the ‘ON’ condition meaning [...]
In January 1907 motor-train working was introduced between Havant and Hayling Island. This consisted of a specially adapted ‘Terrier’ engine and a third class only auto-train trailer coach. With this arrangement the coach was pulled as normal with the engine in front on the outward journey and on the return journey the coach was pushed [...]
Richard Barton Collection Terrier No 643 “Gipsyhill” leaving Langstone with a Hayling Island train in the early 1900s. Note the replacement wooden number plate and the bunker filled with coal. The typical branch train is composed of a Passenger Brake Van, a 5 compartment Third, a 4 compartment First/Second Composite and a Passenger Brake [...]
Terriers 663 ex-Preston and 643 ex Gipsyhill on Fratton shed in the early twentieth Century, when they were frequent visitors to the Hayling island branch. Preston was renumbered 663 in June 1901 and Gipsyhill to 643 in April 1902 and both had their brass number plates removed and substituted with wooden ones, with the numbers painted in gold. At [...]
The following is an extract from the Evening News, April 3, 1903: The proposed Hayling Island Aerial Bridge Today we are enabled to give an illustration of the Traveller Suspension Bridge which it is proposed to construct across the Langstone Harbour channel to Hayling Island. The bridge is a portion of an important scheme for [...]
This facility was constructed over the trackbed at the approach to Hayling Island Station.
This map shows the rural nature of Hayling Island and the new housing developments on the east of the Island. It also shows the original route of the Hayling railway as authorised by the 1860 Act of Parliament, running on an embankment to the proposed docks near the Portsmouth – Hayling Ferry. The 1864 Act [...]
What excitement for my two sisters and me when we caught the train from Portchester to Havant and then waited to board the Hayling Billy. This would be a regular summer treat at the weekend or during the school holidays for the family in the 1950s, with Dad loaded up with towels and bathing costumes, and sharing food [...]
It was around the mid 1950s when I set out on an occasional venture. I was carrying a one-year-old daughter and holding the hand of the other as we boarded the bus from Cowplain to Havant Station. There we clambered aboard the Hayling Billy for the lovely scenic journey across the sea to Hayling. After the long [...]
In 1947 I was living in Highgate. (I was aged 7). We got a taxi to Waterloo, then the train to Havant, then the Hayling Billy. We walked up to Warner’s Southleigh Holiday camp, in St Mary’s Road. Before we left we packed a trunk with all our holiday gear. The trunk was picked up by the rail company [...]
