H. F. Stephens
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Colonel Holman Fred Stephens (1868 - 23 October 1931) was a British light railway civil engineer and manager. During his lifetime he was engaged in engineering and building, and later managing, 16 light railways in England and Wales.
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[edit] Biography
Stephens was the son of Frederic George Stephens, Pre-Raphaelite artist and art critic and his wife the artist Rebecca Clara (nee Dalton). After studying civil engineering at University College, London he was apprenticed in the workshops of the Metropolitan Railway in 1881. From there he went on to become an assistant engineer during the building of the Cranbrook and Paddock Wood Railway, which was 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 building light railways for rural areas. Most of his projects were to be planned and built under the terms of the 1896 Light Railways Act. His first two independently built railways ,the Rye and Camber Tramway and the Hundred of Manhood and Selsey Tramway, predated this but he built the first railway under that Act: the Rother Valley Railway (later to become 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.It was characteristic of the Stephens' run railways that they stayed independent of the larger systems that were created following the Grouping under the Railways Act 1921. When he died in 1931 the management was taken over by his former "outdoor assistant", W.H. Austen and run until they closed or were incorporated into the national system in 1948.
[edit] The Stephens railways
The railways in which Stephens became involved, and which became operational, were as follows (opening/closing dates):
- Ashover Light Railway (1924-1950): stone-carrying; 2 ft (610 mm) gauge
- Burry Port and Gwendraeth Valley Railway (1859-1996): originally coal-carrying, adapted for passenger traffic by Stephens 1913; grouped with Great Western Railway 1923
- Cranbrook and Paddock Wood Railway (1892-1961): worked, and finally absorbed by the South Eastern Railway in 1900
- Edge Hill Light Railway (1919-1925): ironstone-carrying; included a 1:6 cable-worked incline; never formally opened
- East Kent Railways: (1911-1980s): passenger service 1916-1948; branch to Richborough; part now a heritage railway
- Ffestiniog Railway (1832-present): 1 ft 111⁄2 in (597 mm) gauge; owned by Stephens 1923-1946, now a heritage railway
- Kent and East Sussex Railway and Rother Valley Railway[1] (1900-1961): now a heritage railway
- North Devon and Cornwall Junction Light Railway (1925-1982): originally a 3 ft (914 mm) china-clay carrier; Stephens engineered its construction 1925; operated by Southern Railway at outset
- Plymouth, Devonport and South Western Junction Railway (1890-1966 (part)): Built by an independent company but operated by the London and South Western Railway as part of its main line. The branch from Bere Alston to Callington was engineered by Stephens and opened in 1908; section to Gunnislake is still operating
- Rye and Camber Tramway (1895-1939): 3 ft (914 mm) gauge; used by military during World War II and never reopened
- Sheppey Light Railway (1896-1950): ownership and control taken over by South Eastern and Chatham Railway in 1905
- Shropshire and Montgomeryshire Railway (S&MR) (1866-1962): original construction as part of the proposed "Potteries, Shrewsbury and North Wales Railway", Stephens reconstructed as S&MR in 1911; passenger services ceased 1933; military use during WWII
- Snailbeach District Railways (1877-1962): 2 ft 3¾ in (705 mm) gauge; lead- and later stone-carrying railway
- Welsh Highland Railway (1877-1936): 1 ft 111⁄2 in (597 mm) gauge; being rebuilt in the early 2000s as a heritage line
- West Sussex Railway: (1897-1935): the "Hundred of Manhood and Selsey Tramway"
- Weston, Clevedon and Portishead Railway: (1897-1940); extension opened 1907
[edit] Other Stephens' projects
Apart from his successful projects, Stephens was also involved in many others, which did not come to fruition — eighteen reached the early, Light Railway Order stage. Many were extensions to existing railways; the most interesting one was the 1920s scheme for the Southern Heights Light Railway, which would have produced a single-track electrified railway from Orpington to Sanderstead.
[edit] The 1923 Grouping
Some of the railways (as can be seen in the list above) were already part of major companies by the time the Railways Act 1921 came into force on 1 January 1923. Many others were not included in the Grouping, and continued to operate independently. After his death in 1931 the surviving railways continued to be run from the Tonbridge office by Austen until they were most were closed due to road competition while the rest were nationalised into British Railways in 1948.
