Of a Channel Island Interlude

19th September 2023

I said it would be late and I hope I haven't spoiled too many readers' Monday mornings. The truth was, Steph and I were in Guernsey for my sister's 40th wedding anniversary and only returned Monday evening. I did wonder whether I could compose a post and publish it automatically while away but in the event didn't have time to write anything before we left on Thursday night. In the few days before we had two moves to fulfill, a pair of box vans from Norden on the Swanage line to Hunsbury Hill and a couple of class 47 bogies from scrapyard to Worksop, which at about 25tons apiece we took as two different moves.

The vans were our first foray into Swanage country and enabled me to suss out the mileage and travelling times to Poole, where we had a hotel room booked for Thursday night. Actually Thursday had both me and Andrew driving to Poole as he and grandson were going to the Tank Museum at Bovington. At silly o'clock Friday morning Steph and I headed for the ferry terminal, crossing on the way the now disused tracks of the Poole Harbour Commissioners where in the 1990s I hired a shunter whilst preparing and supplying a secondhand refurbed 4wDH.

Guernsey is not known as a centre of railway activity. Today the only operating railway there (that I know of) is a miniature but as it wasn't operating in September I didn't try to get to see it. They did have a tramway that closed in the mid 30's (there's still some track to be seen if you know where, such as the old tram sheds near St Sampson), but that all changed during the occupation. To secure and fortify their possession, the Germans laid 20 miles of 900 and 600mm gauge lines starting at St Peter Port, going north and then west to supply construction sites. Much of it was laid directly on to existing roads, and having completed the massive concrete bunkers (etc) the lines were allegedly removed in order that they might not be spotted from air reconnaissance. Most of the locos and wagons returned to the European mainland (a Henschell 0-4-0WT remained unservicable through to about 1946) and what was left disappeared after the war. For obvious reasons photos of the lines in operation are next to none.

So was there no redeeming railway interest for me for the whole of a long weekend? Well no, not exactly. At the German Occupation Museum, a private collection housed in the south west of the island, a 600mm gauge O&K skip (tipper wagon for those of you not familiar with n.g. terminology) is amongst the exhibits which range from uniforms, bullets and such through to vehicles, searchlights and 30ft long gun barrels. Nearby is another museum, located in an underground bunker so beloved of the Germans in the WW2 period. It comprises a labyrinth of underground concrete lined tunnels, half of which were ammunition storage and the other half a field hospital. It is a long, cool and spooky walk (echoing and with water dripping through the concrete lining creating white stalagtites in places).

Construction was never completed and apparently some rail vehicles were recovered, with track, and are now on display. Both are not quite the same as the O&K example in the Occupation Museum, and might in fact be Hudson ones judging by certain construction features.

Steph and I came home Monday night and as Andrew was returning grandson there is nothing more to report from nearer home, so I'll stop here and resume normal service next week. See ya then.