Colonel Holman Fred Stephens (31 October 1868 – 23 October 1931) was a British light railway civil engineer and manager. He was engaged in engineering and building, and later managing, 16 light railways in England and Wales .
11-514: The Edge Hill Light Railway , one of Colonel Stephens ' light railways , was in Warwickshire , England. It was designed to carry ironstone from Edge Hill Quarries to Burton Dassett where a junction was made with the Stratford-upon-Avon and Midland Junction Railway . It was never officially opened, but began operating in 1922. "a dead duck of a railway from inception" In the middle of
22-448: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Colonel Stephens Railways Stephens was the son of Frederic George Stephens , Pre-Raphaelite artist and art critic , and his wife the artist Rebecca Clara (née Dalton). He was named after his father's friend and former tutor, the painter Holman Hunt , although the two later fell out. He was a great nephew of the naturalist, explorer and biologist, Charles Darwin . Stephens
33-493: Is at Tenterden Station in Kent. There are several books about Col. Stephens's railways. The railways in which Stephens was involved were: Stephens was involved in many projects that did not come to fruition, 18 of which reached the early, Light Railway Order, stage. Many were extensions to existing railways; one was the 1920s 'Southern Heights Light Railway', a single-track electrified railway from Orpington to Sanderstead . He
44-774: The 1896 Light Railways Act . His first two railways, the Rye and Camber Tramway and the Hundred of Manhood and Selsey Tramway , predated this, but he built the first railway under the Act, the Rother Valley Railway (later the Kent and East Sussex Railway ). The railways were planned, and some later run, from an office at 23 Salford Terrace in Tonbridge , Kent, which Stephens had rented in 1900 and purchased in 1927. Many of his railways stayed independent of
55-625: The larger systems created in the Grouping under the Railways Act 1921 . Stephens had no close relatives and never married. He had few interests outside of railways other than voluntary military service and Liberal Party politics, having befriended MP for Caernarfon David Lloyd George during Stephens' period as Manager of the Welsh Highland Railway and Ffestiniog Railway between 1925 and 1931. In 1916, during World War I , Stephens attained
66-410: The late 1930s in the possibility that the line could be re-opened. In 1942, permanent way from the lower portion of the line was requisitioned for the construction of the army depot now known as MoD Kineton . This had the effect of isolating the line, and the remaining stock at the top of the incline, from the main line and so they survived there until 1946. This England rail transport related article
77-417: The line, there was a cable-worked incline at 1 in 6 (16%). As the quarry was at the top of the incline, the incline could be worked as self-acting: the weight of full ore wagons descending was sufficient to draw the empties back up. Within three years it was found that the iron ore deposits were uneconomic, and the line ceased operating in 1925. It was not dismantled until 1946. A caretaker was employed until
88-559: The rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the Territorial Army (TA) with which he had been associated since the 1890s. He continued to support the TA throughout most of the 1920s. When he died in 1931 aged 62, the management of his railways was taken over by his former "outdoor assistant" and life partner, W. H. Austen , who ran them until they closed or were incorporated into the national system in 1948. A museum devoted to his life and achievements
99-626: Was apprenticed in the workshops of the Metropolitan Railway in 1881. He was an assistant engineer during the building of the Cranbrook and Paddock Wood Railway , which opened in 1892. In 1894 he became an associate member of the Institution of Civil Engineers , which allowed him to design and build railways in his own right. He immediately set about his lifetime's project of operating light railways for rural areas, mostly planned and built under
110-472: Was involved in: The majority of the locomotives were second-hand, but a few were bought new from Hawthorn Leslie and Company including: None of these has been preserved. Tenterden Town railway station Tenterden Town railway station is a heritage railway station on the Kent and East Sussex Railway in Tenterden , Kent , England. When the railway line first opened in 1900, Rolvenden Station
121-519: Was known as "Tenterden". Its name was changed when the line extended north three years later and a station closer to Tenterden was constructed. The new Tenterden Town station opened on 16 March 1903. The line closed for regular passenger services on 4 January 1954 and all traffic in 1961. It reopened on 3 February 1974 under the aegis of the Tenterden Railway Company which bought the line between Tenterden and Bodiam. The station now houses
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