Night Ferry
Overview | |
---|---|
Service type | London Victoria Paris Gare du Nord |
Distance travelled | ~ 500 kilometres |
Average journey time | ~ 11 hours |
Service frequency | Nightly |
The Night Ferry was an international
History
The Night Ferry was introduced on the night of 14 October 1936. The train was operated by Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits (CIWL) until 1 January 1977, when it was taken over by British Rail. Motive power was provided by the Southern Railway and later British Railways in England, SNCF in France and from 1957, by SNCB in Belgium.[1]
When loaded onto the train ferry the train was split into sections and loaded equally on tracks on the port and starboard sides of the ship, to maintain its balance. It normally departed from and arrived at platform 2 at London Victoria where customs checks were performed.[1]
The first class sleeping cars and the baggage vans travelled the entire journey. The English train from London Victoria to
From November 1936, a
After ceasing with the onset of
Following electrification of the
Until the Eurostar service began on 14 November 1994, the Night Ferry had been the only through passenger train between the United Kingdom and continental Europe. The carriages of the daytime Golden Arrow train did not cross the English Channel.[1]
Plans to build the Channel Tunnel were scrapped in the 1970s on cost grounds. This gave the Night Ferry a short reprieve; a tunnel would have inevitably led to the end of conveying passenger carriages by train ferry.[1]
By the 1970s the carriages were dated and in need of replacement. They were not air-conditioned, and during the ship voyage, while inside the ship, they became notably hot in summer. This was exacerbated by the chaining of the vehicles to the ship's deck, an activity underneath the sleeping compartments which inevitably woke most passengers up during the middle of the night. The carriages were over 40 years old, and by some margin were the oldest passenger vehicles running on the British network.[1]
From 1 January 1977,
Competition from air services also affected the train. The Night Ferry was withdrawn on 31 October 1980.[5][6]
Rolling stock
For the commencement of the service, 12 sleeping carriages (numbered 3788-3799) were built by
A final seven (3983-3989) were built in 1952, also built at St Denis, to replace wartime losses. In addition to sleeping cars, the train normally included two SNCF Fourgon baggage vans.[1] The National Railway Museum in York has preserved 3792, while the Bluebell Railway in East Grinstead has 3801.[7][8]
Ferries
A train ferry was used between Dover and Dunkirk to convey passengers as they slept. The train used one of the three Southern Railway train ferries: SS Hampton Ferry, SS Twickenham Ferry and SS Shepperton Ferry, built in the mid-1930s by Swan Hunter in Newcastle. Two ships were normally in service with the third as a spare.[1]
After the loss of the
At
Two ships were required for the service each night. They passed in mid-Channel, the voyage taking about three hours. The ships usually returned in the daytime, carrying only freight wagons. On some crossings road vehicles were also carried alongside the trains, the decks of the ships being level with the embedded rail tracks. The carriages were chained to four parallel tracks in the ferry's hold.
Along with the removal of much of the old railway infrastructure at Dover Marine (renamed Dover Western Docks in 1979), the Night Ferry enclosed dock at Dover has been filled in and is now used as an aggregates terminal.
Channel Tunnel
An attempted resurrection of British–Continental sleeper services under the Nightstar brand after the opening of the Channel Tunnel in 1994 was abandoned after the carriages for it had been built.[9] The arrival of cheap airlines in the 1990s meant the service could never be profitable, and the proposed service faced daunting logistical issues as well. The carriages, which were never used in Europe, were eventually sold to Via Rail of Canada.[10]
Timetable
The journey from London to Paris took 11 hours
Winter timetable 1959/1960
Down | station | Up |
21:00 | d London Victoria a |
09:10 |
22:42 | a Dover Marine d |
07:20 |
05:34 | d Dunkirk a | 01:21 |
09:00 | a Paris Gare du Nord d | 22:00 |
08:44 | a Brussels d | 21:15 |
See also
References
Notes
- ^ ISBN 0901845132.
- ^ "London–Basle sleeper runs again". Modern Railways. London. August 1968. p. 444.
- ^ Southern Electric by G.T.Moody 4th Edition page 177
- ^ Xmas 1974 Steptoe & Son
- ^ Night Ferry no more The Railway Magazine issue 957 January 1981 page 39
- ^ The Last Train to Paris, The Railway Magazine issue 958, February 1981, pages 59-61
- ^ Compagnie Internationale de Wagon-Lits et de Grands Express Europeens sleeping car National Railway Museum
- ^ Night Ferry Sleeping Car No.3801 Bluebell Railway
- ^ Brand new carriages go into store as axe falls on £200m Nightstars The Railway Magazine issue 1154 June 1997 page 9
- ^ Canadians to buy all 139 Nightstars The Railway Magazine issue 1198 February 2001 page 14
Further reading
Fiction
- OCLC 14912716.
- Wallace, Bryan Edgar (1965). Murder on the Night Ferry. London: Hodder & Stoughton. OCLC 30277655.
- The Ipcress File (film, 1965)
Non-fiction
- Behrend, George (1962). Grand European Expresses: The Story of the Wagons-Lits. London: Allen & Unwin. OCLC 833168948.
- Elliott, Chris; Duvoskeldt, Eric (2011). Ferry Boat de Nuit 1936 – 1980: guide historique du train qui a bercé votre sommeil de Paris et Bruxelles à Londres = Night Ferry 1936 – 1980: the train that carried you asleep from London to Paris and Brussels. Wansford: International Railway Preservation Society. ISBN 9780957054905. (in English and French)
- van Noord, J. (1 November 1980). "Daar komt de trein" [Last run of the Night Ferry]. ). (in Dutch)
External links
- Media related to Night Ferry at Wikimedia Commons
- http://www.eastbank.org.uk/ferry.htm
- https://web.archive.org/web/20060518002658/http://www.dover-kent.co.uk/transport/night_ferry.htm
- http://www.semgonline.com/misc/named_09.html
- http://www.irps-wl.org.uk/wagon-lits/services/nightferry
- http://www.irps-wl.org.uk/wagon-lits/other-history/nord-van
- http://www.irps-wl.org.uk/