ADAM TRIMINGHAM

THE inventor Magnus Volk was one of the most remarkable men Brighton has ever known. Not only did he install electric light in the Royal Pavilion but he also started a unique railway in the sea between the Palace Pier and Rottingdean known affectionately to locals as Daddy Long Legs.

But his best-known and most enduring invention is the little train which has trundled along Brighton seafront in Kemp Town for more than 100 years. His line was the first public electric railway in Britain and has a special place in transport history.

Magnus Volk himself ran it successfully from 1883 until his death in 1937 but soon after that the council took over and has run it ever since. For a long time it was a top tourist attraction in Brighton but I would not describe it that way today.

Volk's Railway in its prime carried more than a million passengers a year, which was twice as many as the Royal Pavilion attracted and in the days when the piers had tolls, probably more than either of them managed. Today's figures are about a quarter of that number.

This decline in passengers has happened at a time when Brighton has become more popular as a resort. The problem is lack of cash. Volk's Railway looks like a line which has been starved of investment for a long time apart from the splendid new Black Rock station, provided by Southern Water as compensation for its stormwater tunnel. The track and fencing look decrepit.

The railway does not run from anywhere to anywhere, missing the Palace Pier at one end and the Marina at the other. It operates only in the summer.

Volk's Railway is fortunate in retaining many of the original cars and some of them are more than a hundred years old. They are the main attractions of the line and have been well preserved.

But there is much more that could be done to make the railway popular. It would be possible to build new cars to provide an all-the-year-round service, enclosing parts of them and providing both heat and light.

Ultimately there is no reason why the line could not continue to terminate at a restored West Pier or even the renovated King Alfred Leisure Centre in Hove.

There have been various calls over the years for a fast light railway system to run along the seafront. The last bid, by Brighton and Hove Council, was made to the Millennium Lottery Fund and was rejected only on a technicality.

The spending on that would be so vast that it could need some public funding as the line would not be viable on its own. But it would be a huge boost to Brighton and Hove.

Magnus Volk would have approved. Were he about today, he would be pioneering such a line for he always looked to the future. The only way in which action is going to happen is by selling the railway to a private operator. I imagine that it might be an attractive proposition to some entrepreneur with an interest in both Brighton and old railways.

Unless this happens, I can envisage a slow decline of Volk's Railway until the council, starved of funds for investment, has to decide whether it has reached the end of the line. No one wants that to happen, so a decision should be made to take action now before the sad message has to be displayed, similar to that at the end of a Bugs Bunny cartoon - That's All, Volk's.

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