Milford On Sea

Another imaginary terminus layout based on a local seaside town.

It's good to have a New Forest area layout that depicts a local railway, even if it is imaginary. It is true that Milford on Sea has never had a Station, but there were schemes put forward in the late 19th and early 20th century to link Milford with the LSWR main line to provide a direct alternative to the Horse Bus from Lymington Town station. There was even a suggestion that the line could go beyond Milford in a Tunnel under the Solent to the Isle of Wight - quite fanciful as the Solent is deep and the gradients would have been very severe.

These plans were all part of a grandiose scheme to turn Milford (as it had been known since before the Doomsday Book) into Milford on Sea, a resort to rival, even surpass, Eastbourne. Some of the scheme actually happened: a number of hotels were built on the cliff top together with some grand houses for the wealthy. Most of these have long since been bulldozed and replaced with blocks of apartments. One does remain, Westover House, now the Beach House pub. This has a railway link of sorts as it was built in 1897 for Alexander Siemens the German industrialist and founder of the electrical engineering firm long associated with railways.

This layout depicts what might have been if the railway had actually arrived - it would have probably been a branch line very much like the Swanage or Lymington Branches - offering some direct services to Waterloo and some connections to fast trains to and from Bournemouth and Waterloo. It would have received the third rail and electric trains in the early 1960s

Here the line survived to be part of the Southern Region of British Railways and is depicted in this layout in the 1960s, with passenger, freight and parcels traffic operated by steam, green diesel and electric trains. On some days, we can even imagine it lasted long enough to see blue and grey stock and even Network South East stock. The layout is a OO terminus station with a fiddle yard to the right and even has third rail. As the photo shows, Milford on Sea would have been a very busy lace.

But wouldn't it have been great to get a train from Waterloo, travel down to Brockenhurst, onto the branch and stopping at Milford on Sea and then into the tunnel off to the Isle of Wight....

More images of Milford on Sea showing the detailed terminus and sidings from the single entry track.