It seems that Southend Pier is on track for a few changes.

Big plans unveiled last week reveal that the historic attraction is to get brand new trains to ferry passengers up and down the mile-long pier.

A colossal £3.25million will be ploughed into replacing the pier’s ageing locomotives with new eco-friendly models and the new trains should be up and running sometime in 2021.

Echo:

The Southend pier train dates back to 1890 when an electric tramway was installed by the Chelmsford-based electrical company Cromptons.

It started with just a single car travelling along a 0.75mile track. Due to popular demand a year later the track was lengthened to 1.25miles and the number of trains gradually grew until there were four in operation with seven cars in each.

It wasn’t until 1949 when there was another major overhaul on the line and the old trains were replaced with new ones similar in design to those operating on the London Underground.

Echo:

In 1978 the electric railway stopped operating due to the wear and tear of the track and the high cost of repairs.

A new track was laid between 1984 and 1986 and Severn Lamb was brought in to resurrect the famous seafront transport system with two new diesel-hydraulic locomotives which still run today.

Countless visitors have taken a ride on the pier train and enjoyed a day out on the longest pleasure pier in the world.

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Even before the electric trains came in, Victorian day-trippers who didn’t want to walk all the way would be transported to the pier head by a horse-pulled tram.

The horse tramway began operating in 1851. One of them is pictured in our gallery – a rare photograph of the old tramway system.

Most of the time the tramway ran smoothly, but in 1887 a tragic accident made headlines across the country.

An elderly lady and her daughter, who were visiting Southend from their home in London, were walking on the pier when the horse tram car overtook them.

In the confusion the ladies stumbled onto the wrong side of the tram line.

The mother was crushed to death against the railings by the tram horses and her daughter was seriously injured. An inquest exonerated the tram driver from blame and ruled the lady’s death as accidental.

When the electric trains were installed, although safer, there were still accidents.

Early one September morning in 1893 a derailment occurred when James Holloway, one of the pier’s electric tram drivers, was about to drive his tram down the pier. Two tram cars collided with his. His tram – full of 27 passengers – left the metal rail and, as a report into the incident concluded: “a tremendous lot of bumping ensued”. Fortunately nobody was seriously hurt.

In 1924 one of the trains derailed, ripping up part of the railing alongside the pier and leaving 29 holidaymakers “badly shaken”.

In August 1926 a boy was tragically killed after he was electrocuted on the pier tram line. Albert Keminski, aged 13 of Bethnal Green had been staying in Southend on holiday. An inquest heard how the teenager went to a school for ‘backward children’ and could only read words such as ‘cat and dog’. He had climbed over the railings into the tramway despite the many warning notices.

The coroner recorded a verdict of accidental death remarked: “If this boy had been able to read in all probability the accident would not have happened.”

In 1936 a heroic Southend pier tram driver was awarded a medal for climbing through the live wires of the tramway at great danger to himself to rescue a woman who had fallen into the sea.

A year later, in 1937, a pier visitor named Emma Goddard, from Westcliff, received a fatal electric shock on the live rail of the pier tramway. Her body was found with her hands still grasping the live rail.

Another death occurred in 1941 when a man fell 30 feet from the Southend Pier train onto the foreshore. He died a week later from his injuries.

Of course it wasn’t all doom and gloom. The pier trains have enjoyed plenty of good times and quirky stories.

In the summer of 1906 the Southend pier train made the newspapers after a lady did what daytrippers everywhere fear - she dropped her handbag directly into the sea while riding on the tramway.

All hope of recovering the bag was abandoned but by some miracle the bag was found floating in the estuary the next day and was returned to her – valuables intact.

Records were often broken during the golden age of the pier.

In 1934 during the Easter holidays an astonishing 35,000 people paid to go on the pier and 27,000 of them travelled on the pier electric train.

In August 1949 the one millionth passenger boarded the Southend pier train and was pleasantly surprised with a commemorative gift. Reports named him as a “Mr C Newquist from London Road in Westcliff.”