West Sussex Railway

rdf:langString West Sussex Railway

rdf:langString The West Sussex Railway was a standard gauge light railway between Chichester to Selsey, in West Sussex. The line, which opened in 1897, was also known as Hundred of Manhood and Selsey Tramway. It was opened as a rail tramway in order to avoid having to comply with regulations that managed conventional railways in the United Kingdom. The line was built under the auspices of the light railway entrepreneur, Colonel Stephens, who would later manage the line as the West Sussex Railway (Tramway Section). In December 1910 the line was inundated (flooded by seawater) when an embankment failed at Pagham Harbour. It was not reinstated so work had to be carried out to raise the line above the waters. Although the line was successful in the decades before the First World War, it suffered financially as road transport increased in the 1920s. Despite attempts to be more efficient through modernisations, such as the introduction of petroleum driven rail car services, the railway closed to all traffic in January 1935. Very little remains of the railway's infrastructure because of land redevelopment and urban expansion along its permanent way.