Twilight of the East Sussex Light...

These photos were recently found in an old cigar box at a second hand shop in Rye and they appear to show the last days of the East Sussex Light, a little known and almost forgotten Colonel Stephens railway...

It is thought that they show Hecate in steam, having pulled Hesperus out of the shed for the photographer. That would make the year 1936 and by this stage passenger service had been abandoned on the branch,  freight was negligible. That December saw rails lifted and the East Sussex drifted in to the memory. Hesperus was sold and cut up on site, Hecate saw use on other Stephens' lines including the West Dorset.

Of course, all a work of fiction. I posed a customers model, Hesperus, with my own Hecate on Kinross. The photos, especially in high contrast black and white seemed to evoke the feeling of the end of the S&M or Selsey Tram, a melancholic rose tinted view on a time now forgotten of railways that had served their purpose as public transport and mobility changed forever with the motor bus and later personal cars. 

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