The Hellingly Hospital Railway was a light railway in East Sussex. It was used for transporting coal and passengers to the psychiatric hospital near Hailsham. The railway was constructed in 1899 and opened to passengers on 20 July 1903. It closed to freight in 1959, following the hospital’s decision to convert its coal boilers to oil, rendering the railway unnecessary.
About Hellingly Hospital Railway in brief
The Hellingly Hospital Railway was a light railway in East Sussex. It was used for transporting coal and passengers to the psychiatric hospital near Hailsham. The railway was constructed in 1899 and opened to passengers on 20 July 1903. It closed to freight in 1959, following the hospital’s decision to convert its coal boilers to oil, rendering the railway unnecessary. Much of the railway has been converted to footpath, and many of the buildings formerly served by the line are now abandoned. The hospital was built to the design of George Thomas Hine, who had designed the nearby Haywards Heath Asylum. The connection was built by the asylum’s builders, Joseph Howe & Company, and was authorised by the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway on condition that East Sussex Council paid the cost, estimated at £1,700. In 1902 the line was electrified at 500 V DC using a local overhead line connected to the local electricity distribution system. After the railway grouping of 1923, passenger numbers declined so significantly that the hospital authorities no longer considered passenger usage of the line to be economical, and that service was withdrawn.
It is not known where the locomotive was manufactured, as the company has no record, but the design suggests that it may have been imported from Germany. A small railcar with space for 12 passengers was also provided for each railcar, and the railcar was fitted with a single trolley pole to collect electricity from the overhead wire. The line climbed most of the way from here to the hospital at 1 in 50. About halfway between Helledly and the hospital the line entered the hospital grounds, passing to the west of Park House Siding, which served the hospital’s Park House annexe. As it approached the hospital, the line split; the southern fork led to a siding to the north-west of the hospital. One fork ran into a large workshop and the other leading to a short platform, which was initially used for passengers. Following the suspension of passenger services it was converted into a coal dock.
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This page is based on the article Hellingly Hospital Railway published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 07, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
