Some view the sea as an impassable obstacle. Magnus Volk wasn’t going to let no saltwater tell him what to do. Ko-Fi: ko-fi.com/jagohazzard Patreon: / jagohazzard
"...but he was no mad scientist." That portrait of Volk is calling you a liar to your face. I mean, the name Magnus Volk alone rates at least a 6/10 on the Fleming Villainous Nomenclature Scale.
Of all the madcap, absurd inventions in the history of railways, this daft bit of magnificence has to be my favorite. It's just so utterly mad; the cabin of a posh steamer, lifeboat and all, riding atop a detached section of pier that itself rolls along parallel railway tracks hidden beneath the sea. It's Late Victorian inventiveness in the face of practicality at its finest. It's the Eiffel Tower, early passenger zeppelins, the SS Bessemer, the Manx Electric Railway, the Crystal Palace, all rolled into one. If I ever won a multi-million lottery, high on my list would be to commission a replica and at least short demonstration line of the Daddy Long-legs; the modern world needs to be reminded what crazy, wonderful places ambition and invention can take you.
You know up until the seventies we in this country had some mad cap schemes coming out of sheds, mad cap today, but then rather normal. To think today that no one ever tinkers around to make a go kart with a lawn mover engine to power it, as we did as children, even wooden go karts themselves not seen, planks of wood and bits of string
@@JagoHazzard Well a sufficiently powerful search light with a focusing lens, heat ray! The asphyxiating gas might depend on what the cafe was serving.
@@jerribee1 also the Muir Woods railway. Kinda like Snowdon railway, but not there now. Big sad. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Tamalpais_and_Muir_Woods_Railway
I don't think it was a worse than on many of the open-top double decked trolleys... sorry trams. If the decking and railing was wood, no problem. Just don't get wet. Oh wait.
@@otterylexa4499 "Hi, I'm Al Harrington, owner, president and CEO of Al Harrington's Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm-Flailing Tubeman Emporium and Warehouse!"
Such a pity this venture failed. It would have been an interesting ride. Had it survived it would probably have been listed and cared for by an army of volunteers. I'd certainly have made the effort to go to Brighton to ride on it.
@@jonchambers131 In a battle between "entrepreneurs" (not in the sense "another bunch of dodgy businessmen" at all, honest) wanting to build yet-another-"exciting"-marina for people to park boats which never move, and the hordes of supporters, national pressure groups, heritage organisations, and rabid troublemakers (sorry, eco-warriors) that a surviving Daddy-Long-Legs would have, I know which one I'm betting on!
This is fascinating. I have been on the railway. Learned about it in school bit never heard about the sea tram. Even heard about the chain pier history and never came across this even in Brighton books. Excellent content, really enjoyed this. Cheers!
@@jasminebambury5841 if you go onto the marina wall at low tide looking towards saltdean you can see it easily. Once you know what distance out it is you can see it looking in the other direction too( from Saltdean).
A boat? A tram? A pier? Perhaps more like the huge cranes on rails at modern container ports. Except those run on dry(ish) land ... Great video as always - many thanks!
A form of public "transport" that carries people slowly over water, and is often shut in bad weather? Sounds a little familiar. *cough* Emirates Airline *cough*
That's slightly unfair. The Emirates dangle-way runs at well over twice the speed of the Volks sea-tram, it does provide useful public transport and it has one of the best views in London at a fraction of the price of the London Eye spin-slowly-on the-spot-way.
@@davecommentator Well railway trucks run on railway tracks, tramway cars run on tram tracks and aerial gondola cars... just sort of dangle from a wire rope, so for consistency, I think aerial gondolas should be called dangleways.
My great grandfather went on this as a boy and spoke about it most enthusiastically when I was young (he died when I was 14). Sadly, it was only after he died that I finally saw some pictures of it. Although it was limited to 8 mph, I gather that was only possible at low tide. There are reports it could barely move at high tide.
“Stop giggling at the back…” for once “LOL” is an accurate description of my reaction. The most clever writing I’ve encountered on the internet. Bravo!
Seems so. A pity, really. You could have gone places, but instead you decided financial capitalism was worth fighting to the death over. Even going as far as (counterintuitively) leaving your main market for said financial dealings. We in the EU are confused, amused and tired of it, all in equal measures.
My grandfather lived in Brighton, and pointed out the remains of the track to me at low tide. We could see it from the bus. He could remember travelling on the train/tram/whatever, and said that at low tide when the tracks were exposed, it could zip along at a walking pace, but at high tide it was so slow as to be pretty well useless. He said the trip from one end to the other through deep water could take upwards of an hour and a half! I also have a vague recollection of him telling me that the original version collected power from the tracks with all the obvious problems, and that the overhead wires were a necessary modification.
An electric train collecting power from tracks submerged in water? I find that slightly hard to believe. Very cool indeed that your grandfather travelled on it though, I'm very jealous of him!
I love this sort of mad ideas, if it actually works. I was fully expecting it to be derailed by debris washing on to the track. Not the most logical form of transport, but I would definitely have taken a ride. And it is seasickness proof!
Well, somewhat. Seasickness is a form of motion sickness, and you can get motion sickness (if prone to it) from pretty much any form of transport that isn't walking (and Maybe riding a bike?), if you're not careful about things.
It's a shame they've never considered rebuilding it, but possibly with steerable wheels now, rather than on a track. But got to love how creative the Victorians were!
It seems somebody had exactly that idea, as such a vehicle can be seen in an episode of the ITV Poirot TV mistery drama, "Evil under the sun", (around 11 minutes into the episode, I think. It can be found here on RU-vid). Funnily enough, like Poirot, I'm a Belgian... I like both Juggo and your video, BTW ;-)
@@NQR-9000 This is the very real vehicle, often known as the 'sea tractor', that provides a passenger service to Burgh Island from the beach at Bigbury in Devon. Not only was the Burgh Island Hotel the filming location for the Poirot episode but It was the inspiration for the original book - Agatha Christie was a regular guest.
These two Brighton uploads of recent days make a great "box set" with your Southend Pier Railway video of about a year (if memory serves me correctly) ago. Little else upon Y.T. brings me a smile as your vid's do!
Are you familiar with the concept of a gadgetbahn? If anything we've got way too many insane railway ideas, they're just insane in really lame ways and not the cool ways things used to be insane.
A very 'Heath Robinson' contraption. (Heath Robinson was an early 20th century cartoonist who liked drawing ridiculously silly overcomplicated inventions and trains) Another cartoonist, Rowland Emett, who did similar work, imagined (and built) beautifully silly locomotives for the 'Far Tottering and Oyster Creek Branch Railway' in Battersea Pleasure Gardens to transport visitors during the 1951 Festival of Britain. The FT&OC Br.Rly might indeed make a worthy topic for Mr Hazzard - if he hasn't already done it.
This video is EXACTLY why I subscribe. I've been on this planet for 52 years and I had never heard/seen of this unique tram system. Absolutely amazing!
In the small coastal town Marstrand (it once was a free port and had city privileges) in Sweden there actually is a ferry called The Tram, shaped like a tram, blue like the trams in Göteborg (Gothenburg for you anglophones) AND it is electric. Still in service on occasional special events. 😊👍🏼
Here in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis & St Paul, Minnesota, US), our local streetcar (tram) company used to run "express boats" on the many bays and inlets of Lake Minnetonka from 1906-1926. They were steam powered, not electric. But they were painted yellow and maroon like the Twin City Lines streetcars, and had the exact same kind of windows and seats -- thus people called them "streetcar boats". Most of them were scrapped in 1926 (half of them by being scuttled in the lake), after competition from cars and better roads had killed the boats' traffic. One was sold to a private owner, who eventually scuttled it too in 1949. But in 1980, one of the scuttled boats (the Minnehaha) was raised from the lakebed, and was restored in the 1990s. Since then, it's run in the summer as a historic attraction, shuttling back and forth between Excelsior and Wayzata. Though right now, it's not running at all. After 2019, its owners lost access to the boat ramp they'd been using to get the Minnehaha in and out of the lake. As of 2022, they're still looking for a new launch site. (more info: steamboatminnehaha.org/ )
Hang on... "He wanted to extend it to Rottingdean, meeting his son's Seaplane Hangar along the way" - for an 1890s railway? Pre-Wright brothers? that needs some further explanation!
A seaplane is not a plane in the usual meaning of flying through the Sky. They use ground effects to 'fly' over the sea at high speeds. Different technology and physics, but from the practical use imagine something that looks a bit like big cargo plane and goes across the sea with a mix of hovercraft and hydrofoil movement.
@@reappermen seaplane does refer to a plane in the sky, just on floats. I’ve never heard of it referring to a ground effect vehicle. Even if it did they weren't a thing until well after seaplanes on floats. Wikipedia says George Volk had a seaplane station in this area 1910-1912, so a slight timeline mix-up.
@@electricalmayhem Well, the timeline mixup is an explanation as well, though at least i nthe UK ground effect vehicles for the sea were refered to as seaplanes around and before the second world war, and they were aorund for a suprisingly long time as well (they came up during early efforts to make real planes as a side effect). The name generaly used seemed to have changed to ekranoplane at some point during the cold war when the soviets did massive research and investments into it and build stuff like their 400 ton lun-class (Ekroplane is an Anglicanisation of the russian word). And while it took unill the cold war for GEV's to really take off, they existed longer than normal planes partly because they were easier and safer to build and, as said, appeared as a by-product of trying to make real planes.
You can see the line of concrete sleepers between the marina and Rottingdean. They are quite visible at low tide, along with a couple of stumps of the power poles. Any trace of the Brighton landing stage was obliterated by the construction of the marina.
I grew up in Woodingdean, the Brighton suburb just north of Rottingdean, so as a youngster often saw the concrete bases for the “Daddy Long Legs” railway tracks at Rottingdean. Years later, I showed our family. If there had been a prize for the world’s most bizarre, dangerous, sea-going overhead electric railway/ tram, then this ought to have won, streets ahead of anything else. I read that many people were frightened to travel on it; the Brighton area does get some fearful storms during the year.I once had a late-Victorian atlas (c 1900), and it marked this railway with a black line drawn in the sea. Rottingdean once had the prospect of a conventional railway. The South Eastern Railway planned a route running to Lewes, going south at Falmer down “Happy Valley” past Woodingdean to Rottingdean, then running near the coast to a terminus at Kemp Town. But the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway built the very expensive short branch to “Kemp Town” ( actually, in a poor part of east Brighton) to counter this, and the project never came to anything.
@@caw25sha I think that would frighten people!. I had not considered having the cars/eggs opened to the water...even though Brunel the younger took his mother with him in a diving bell to inspect the hole in the roof of the Thames tunnel.
There was also something like this in the french city of Saint Malo between 1873 and 1923. It was unfortunately severely damaged after a boat rammed into it and closed permanently afterwards.
I absolutely love the brief but thorough coverage and comprehensive information concerning the old Volk Electric Line. I remember learning of this device when I was in second grade
The Daddy Long Legs story. It’s an intrinsic part of Brighton’s history. I grew up in the area and only learned about this eccentric railway in later years. Great that you have made this unique history available to a wider audience.
My great grandfather, James John Barker, worked on both the "Daddy Long Legs" and the Electric Railway. A local newspaper called James "Mr Volk's right hand man" . I'm immensely proud of him.
Wow! An amazing story I had never heard before. I used to spend quite a lot of time in Brighton and have been on the Volk's railway but this is a revelation. Thanks for another fascinating 8 minutes.
At 3:19 I think I see a horse in the back left of the car. This Volk fellow was amazing, he should be fictionalized as the hero of a Steampunk novel. Something Michael Moorcock could have done wonders with.
A great video again. I knew this was coming when you mentioned it in the previous video. It is this type of content that keeps me coming back time after time to your videos.
Brilliant!!! Thanks so much! I lived in Hove/Brighton for 15 years in the 80/90s and the locals still told folk stories about Daddy Long-Legs! Volks seafront railway is my favourite line in the whole world. East Sussex is a very surreal place. Really appreciate your work pal. Keep on chooglin!
"No pun intended" he says,disingenuously... I was lucky to have been told of a commemorative jug for this line,for sale at a charity shop...it's now safely in my flat.
Really enjoyed this video. When I drive into Brighton and the tide is out, I can see the line of the tracks stretching out into the distance towards the marina. Hard to imagine what this beast would have looked and sounded like when running, let alone what a journey on it must have been like.
Thank you for bringing this obscure railway, out of obscurity even though for some it’s not obscure, but for most it is indeed obscure. Brilliant episode. Bravo sir 👏👏👍😀
Totally fascinating, I lived in Brighton for a few years and had no idea this ever existed, It must have been a really amazing experience to have travelled on it.
Brilliant video Jago! This was about one of the craziest inventions to my knowledge. If it wasn't for the unfortunate storm and the groynes, it might of still been around today. Brighton beach is a lousy pile of shingle. Something like Pioneer would have upped the interest factor in Brighton by many times. I would have certainly gone on a voyage in It!
What an age that must have been to live in Jago, to be able to aspire and see that aspiration become reality. Yep I know it happens today but it doesn't feel quite so, well kind of close, if you know what I mean. Thanks again, informative and funny as ever.
Such an incredible little railway! I do wish we could rebuild it even simply as a testament to the industrial madness of that age! Of course it’s impractical, costly, and unreliable - but frankly who could genuinely claim to dislike it?
It's great to see a video on this unique railway. I remember it appearing in a railway book for kids about 40 years ago (making the book at least 50+ years old now), calling it the "Underwater Train." In more recent times I've tried to search for an "underwater train" only to come up with a few Stanier 8F's remains at the bottom of the Red Sea (IIRC). So thanks again to you, Jago, I've learned something new from long ago!
Thank you for this video! Would always walk along by the tracks on our way to the clubs down there during my uni days, I always knew about this but never much detail, would have been amazing to see this in person.
Yes. Your hopes have been fulfilled, Mr. Hazzard for I believe that we will all enjoy this ("will" used advisedly - not "shall"!) video, eagerly anticipated since your V.E.R. upload. Thank you!
Hats off to you! Imagining just putting one of your documentary videos together blows my mind when I think of the time you must take researching, putting together the script, filming, voice over and editing. Just with the filming I see a clip and think that may have taken a day to go out of your way to record a scene that may just be in the video for a few seconds. Also the sheer house keeping of documenting all of your clips so as you can easily pull them into future videos. Like I say hats off to you. An amazing body of work!
Reminds me of the ferries on rails we used to have in The Netherlands. They worked in a similar fashion, with tracks on the bottom of the canal/ river.
