There have been two railways within the state territories of the
Bailiwick of Guernsey, a
British Crown Dependency comprising six inhabited islands.
* The
Guernsey Railway operated from 1879 to 1934 on the principal island,
Guernsey.
* The
Alderney Railway
The Alderney Railway on Alderney is the only railway in the Bailiwick of Guernsey, and the only working railway in the Channel Islands. (There is a standard gauge railway at the Pallot Heritage Steam Museum in Jersey, but this provides no actua ...
opened in 1847 and continues to operate on the second largest island of the bailiwick,
Alderney.
* During World War II, German engineers built, modified and extended rail lines on both Alderney and Guernsey
Guernsey
There are currently no railway services on the island of Guernsey.
Early tramways
The earlier transport system was worked by steam, and was named the Guernsey Steam Tramway. It began service on 6 June 1879 with six locomotives. The
Guernsey Railway, which was virtually an electric tramway, and which began working on 20 February 1892, was abandoned on 9 June 1934.
Second World War
During the
German occupation of the Channel Islands in the Second World War, light railways were built by German engineers and the
Organisation Todt
Organisation Todt (OT; ) was a civil and military engineering organisation in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, named for its founder, Fritz Todt, an engineer and senior Nazi. The organisation was responsible for a huge range of engineering pr ...
in Guernsey in 1941 and 1942 to help build and supply coastal fortifications, such as
Fort Hommet. The line ran from
Saint Peter Port
St. Peter Port (french: Saint-Pierre Port) is a town and one of the ten parishes on the island of Guernsey in the Channel Islands. It is the capital of the Bailiwick of Guernsey as well as the main port. The population in 2019 was 18,958.
St. ...
to L'Eree via
St Sampson and L'Ancresse. This included railway sidings at L'Islet.
There were spurs of . No attempt was made to take the lines to the higher parishes in the south of the island.
All the surface laid tracks were dismantled after the occupation.
Alderney
The Alderney Railway provides a rail link of approximately , with a regular timetabled service during the summer months and at seasonal festivals including Easter and Christmas. It is now the only working railway on the Channel Islands to provide a public transport link. It is also one of the oldest railways in the British Isles, dating from 1847, and carried
Queen Victoria
Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previo ...
and Prince Albert as the first 'official' passengers in 1857.
During World War II, the Germans lifted part of the line and replaced it with a line, worked by two
Feldbahn
A , or , is the German term for a narrow-gauge field railway, usually not open to the public, which in its simplest form provides for the transportation of agricultural, forestry () and industrial raw materials such as wood, peat, stone, earth an ...
0-4-0
diesel locomotives.
There is also a gauge miniature railway on Alderney, which operates during the summer months.
See also
*
Transport in Guernsey
References
{{Guernsey topics , state=collapsed
Transport in Guernsey
Rail transport in the Channel Islands