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Your Story: The Sarratt and Rickmansworth Light Railway |
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As a further precaution against effervescence of sherbet the Batchworth warehouse was reroofed and damp-proofed! The treacle delivered to the wharf at Batchworth was quickly forwarded by the Grand Junction Canal Company to the London refinery of Tate & Lyle. Tate & Lyle constructed special oblong tanks which could he lifted from the wagon frames hauled by Daysy into the GJC barges and butties. The company patented the idea and named the containers "rectankles" but none of the railway companies was interested in them.
The L & NWR instead began to object to the treacle traffic which regularly leaked and made the line dangerously sticky as well as jamming the points. In the summer months treacle filled the expansion joints. When the treacle hardened in colder weather, the solidified railway lines began to buckle in the exposed lengths. One over-enterprising driver developed a side-line in collecting flints along en route. He came from a family of flint knappers who had helped to build St Thomas' Church, West Hyde; and knew that there was a great demand for flints for building other parish churches in that period of ecclesiastical reorganisation. The extra heavy load he imposed on Daysy caused her to run out of coal for her boiler.
Man cuts sugar cane |
The knowledgeable driver had heard of sugar being used on the West Indian Railways as a regular fuel and kept Daysy running for a time by scooping treacle into her firebox. The treacle burned well, but left so much gooey clinker that Daysy lost her head of steam and came to a halt - at Salter’s Brewery, of course. By the time the emergency party arrived to rescue Daysy, the driver, now 'ale and hearty', was also immobilised. He soon returned to the flint dressing trade. The closure of the Sarratt Railway was due to many other factors.
The most important were: 1. Exhaustion of bargees unable to stand the pace of the sherbet run without rest from Pontefract; 2. Misuse and poor performance of Daysy; 3. The inferior quality of the raw treacle by the time it reached the refinery making it unsuitable for the manufacture of Golden Syrup; 4. The slow effervescence of the sherbet in the humid warehouse set in damp conditions at Batchworth; 5. Pilfering from the warehouse by youth of Rickmansworth who had discovered the exhilaration of effervescing sherbet; 6. Damage to the warehouse walls when a freshly delivered supply of concentrated sherbet effervesced up to the roof; 7. The demise of the mine manager who came to a sticky end, or rather the sticky end came to him, after a boozy afternoon in the Boat Tavern.
Steam engine |
He was walking up the line to Sarratt when Daysy ran him down, treacle tank first. The undertaker, Mr Paul Beater, and his attendants had great difficulty in extricating his body. A hard frost had solidified the flowing treacle and completely candied the corpse. Fortunately the cold weather persisted to allow the safe interment of the embalment. After the sale of the rolling stock, the track was taken up by the firm that processed red and black currants at Market Rasen.
They needed a dual track to supply direct currents to their currant fields. The track bed still makes a pleasant walk after lunch at the Beefeater to Sarratt Bottom where the shop by Mill Farm still sells ice cream, but no longer the treacle toffee for which it was famous nor peppermints for the miners. For those requiring stronger meat and drink, the climb up to the Red Lion at Chenies has to be completed.
It is a matter of great regret that the Sarratt Railway failed. Its success would have helped the extension of Lord Ebury’s line to Uxbridge after 1862 and saved its closure in 1952. In the age of air travel another extension to Heathrow would have served London Airport. Today with the Channel Tunnel forthcoming we might have been able to fulfil Edward Watkins’ dreams of a Central Line passing Rickmansworth en route for Paris and beyond. What a shame that Lord Ebury, Tate & Lyle and Lord Beeching could not arrange their railways better.
Words: The Late Mr Wilfred Broughton
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