Hundred of Manhood and Selsey Tramway

The West Sussex Railway opened in 1897 as the Hundred of Manhood and Selsey Tramway, running from Chichester to Selsey, in West Sussex. It was built to standard gauge, but as a tramway in order to avoid having to comply with regulations that covered railways. It later changed its name to the West Sussex Railway (Tramway Section). It was engineered by H. F. Stephens, later Colonel Stephens.

It suffered from the inundation of December 1910 near Pagham, and had to carry out work to raise the level of the railway in the area.

Successful in the era before the First World War, it gradually declined in the face of road competition; it responded by the most stringent economies, and it introduced petroleum fuelled rail cars to operate the service.

It finally closed in January 1935; little remains of the railway.

The passing of the Light Railways Act in 1896 prompted local businessmen to consider whether a light railway connection to Selsey could be made. The town lies on the coast about 8 miles south of the City of Chichester. As they prepared their scheme, they found that it would be possible to get authorisation much more simply under the Railway Construction Facilities Act, 1864. By structuring the line as a tramway, the numerous public road level crossings would not require the special safety arrangements required for railway operation, and accordingly they formed the Hundred of Manhood and Selsey Tramway. The Company was incorporated on 29 April 1896.

H. F. Stephens was appointed as engineer to design the line and supervise construction; this was his second such role, after the Rye and Camber Tramway. His subsequent career pursued several very local lines often run on minimal finance; during war service he became (Lieutenant-) Colonel Stephens, by which he is better known.

The land was acquired from co-operative landowners without the need for compulsory powers, although this forced a slightly indirect route. It started from a point a little to the south of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR) station at Chichester; it left westwards and immediately turned south, running broadly southwards to Selsey itself, a distance of 7¼ miles (11.7 km). Just south of Chichester, the line crossed the Chichester Canal, which still had some small traffic volume passing, and a simple manually operated lifting bridge was provided there.

The contractor for the construction needed a locomotive for the work, and the locomotive was moved on the public road to get to the line south of the Chichester Canal. It was hauled by a traction engine, and it ran on rails placed on their sides in the roadway; workmen progressively moved the rails to the front of the engine as it made its slow movement. The locomotive was later named Chichester.

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