Spurn Head

Remains of the Spurn Head railway

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

Pictures of some surviving bits of the former military railway along Spurn Point in East Yorkshire.

[Rails crossing the concrete road]
Picture taken 2005-06-05.

[Looking along the route of the railway]
Looking towards Kilnsea, with the route into the site of the loco and railcar shed to the right. December 2002.

[Rails in the car park]
Track at the site of the entrance to the loco and railcar shed. December 2002.

[Rails crossing the concrete road]
There are two or three places on Spurn where rails can still be seen set into the later concrete road. Photo © Andrew Stacey, who has some good photographs of Holderness on his website. Picture taken 2002-03-27.

[Rails crossing the concrete road]
Track and some anti-tank blocks. Picture taken 2005-06-05.

[Rails crossing the concrete road]
Picture taken 2005-06-05.

[Rails crossing the concrete road]
Picture taken 2005-06-05.

Links

The railway

Some pictures of the Spurn sail bogies on Mike Munro’s website. Some more details of their use.

Preserved 0-4-0ST Lord Mayor worked on the Spurn Head railway during World War I.

Books

The Industrial Railway Society book The Spurn Head Railway (IRS Record 67) by KE Hartley (1976) covers the history of the line. There have been at least two editions, but it is quite hard to find.

Sailing the Rails – A New History of Spurn and its Military Railway by Howard Frost is a more recent 80-page book with delightful photography highlighting the story of a four-mile railway along the sand dunes of Spurn. Between 1915 and 1951 it linked two military forts and provided a lifeline to the mainland, for one of the most isolated lifeboat communities in the country according to the East Riding Council. I’ve got a copy of the book, and it is excellent. It is far more than simply an update of the previous volumes, and as well as the railway matters has more on the social history of Spurn and Kilnsea. If anyone is interested in the line or the area it is well worth acquiring a copy from the Butterfly Conservation Yorkshire Branch(!), even if you have one of the previous ones. There are a lot more pictures, and more details of military matters. My only complaint is that the text has too many “!” for my personal taste…

The September 1978 issue of Railway Modeller magazine had a plan for a model railway layout based on Spurn.

Spurn

Background information about Spurn.

Aerial photos of East Yorkshire and northern Lincolnshire, with some views of Spurn.

Not far from Spurn is the Kilnsea sound mirror, one of a number of acoustic mirrors along the coast.