um rebecca yeah yep three questions okay go on uh number one do you want to go to the beach yeah
number two do you want to go to an island uh oh white yeah no no not the other one uh number three
should we do an everyday shoe station oh yeah cool now we haven't done one in a while we have not
the hayling island branch line marks our 34th episode
of the every disused station series where we attempt to visit all of the abandoned
stations in the uk so far we've done 353 of around 6800 so just a little way to go
the hailing island branchline is where we're heading today built on a budget in 1865 it
peels off from the stilling use haven't stationed and heads south toward the beach
speaking of which the sun is out so let's get a rig along
oh my goodness me I'm excited because it's sunny well number one it's sunny it's like
spring one into spring now out of big lockdown um more importantly than anything though we are now
back on the every disused station trail there's only a small every district station be a short
quick punch one but we're back on every district station everybody so yeah yes welcome to every
tissue station number oh god oh no no i don't know i haven't got no idea 30 something maybe
we were at langstone harbour okay and this is about the wildlife
i haven't smelt sea area in what feels like an age it is an age oh it smells really nice isn't
it very unique um if you haven't worked out already we're doing the hailing island branch
line which is often called the hayling billy and it basically forms part of um cycle number two
yes for privileged cycle number two we know we've never been that low in numbers when we've
done cycle routes ever so we just we just passed langston which is the first stop the first tick of
the day langston station there's nothing there is there nope we couldn't find the old station
master's house which apparently burnt down a few years ago we thought we'd find some remnants but
we couldn't maybe we're just in the wrong place for that but yeah we've gotta rebuild that
we're coming we're coming up to now probably the most striking feature of this line
which was the viaduct for the viaduct to say that as a bridge but it's just this
beautiful structure apparently it was shrouded in concrete from the 1920s maybe yeah 19s early 30s
so that was langston station and the absurdly impressive viaduct just back there we're going to
head a bit further south now and tell you more of the bridge bridge bridge sorry we're going to tell
you more of the quirkiness of this railway because it's really wonderful little stories about this
little line and that's what we love telling you guys so uh we'll see you on the other side of the
bridge right so we are now when our south of the um south of the bridge we have south of
the bridge which is just over there we're just taking a slight detour off the track to have a
look at the oyster beds very exciting and we just talked about the the bridge in terms of its uh
historic importance in this part of the railway so they built this line on the cheap shocker london
south uh london brighton south coast railway and they bought the land off of this guy there all
these mud flats here and they had this great idea they'd have to do compulsive purchase
they were going to use this instead because it kept on eroding into the sea and when they came
to do the whole board of trade inspection um they noticed that a lot of the sleepers were
rotten yeah at the very beginning of the line because they've been there for so long because
it was the start of what they built it's all rotten yes and it was rotted away they had a
an unauthorized level crossing so building on the cheap didn't really help them there
to fix some of these things and the mud flats here where they try to just build
an embankment for a railway it did work in the end and they built the line down the west coast
that's some
right so if you can overhear us over the noise of the birds in the background
we're nearly at hailing north so hayling north was another station on the line south of langston
and i think it was extremely busy especially in the summer months because obviously london
brighton south coast railroad realized that i think a lot of traffic was going to be summer
seaside traffic so people from a little further north used to pack themselves on the train here
head south down to the beaches extremely popular and lots of reports of overcrowding on the trains
so hailing island hanging out hailing north is probably one of those stops i i can just
barely hear my voice over the birds good luck editing that one yeah that's mad isn't it
yeah so we did that was hayling ireland uh that wasn't that was heading north
and off by train five minutes away from langston and by train five minutes away from hayley island
south which is where we're gonna head now so we didn't film in a car park
because it's a car park but we'll um we'll see you at hailing island itself
right so we're now coming up to the end of the line we're coming to hailing island station um
which was obviously busy in the summer and not very busy in the winter basically basically yeah
i think there's another thing looking for a good shed as well down here
maybe it's been reused reconverted re something reconverted yeah that's
that's what's not it's been converted and then it's been converted again reconverted
you see you're better than word to me i was never good at english
halying island station lovely rebecca well it's not lovely but it's kind of lovely
in uh not lovely but lovely sense the fact that's being reused is great yes it's not
just the background and there's a stage that's not the station
the infrastructure of what was the station area well one last request
what can we go to the beach yeah way yeah so we made it to hailing island beach which is lovely
um so yeah hopefully and you've enjoyed our little everyday shoe station we've got a lot more
everyday shoe stations planned including tunnels abandoned railways obviously viaducts you name it
um a few canals thrown in for good measure as well of course but yeah hopefully this is
us back on the everyday station trail which we know you love
that was a few inches away from my toes right we'll see you next week
you