HERITAGE TRAMS
GREEN electric vehicle No. 6 glides imperceptibly over the marshes of the nature reserve, passing a fidgeting flock of Canada Geese sensing springtime. Swans smooth their way across the shallow ponds causing barely a ripple, and native ducks gabble to each other against the off-shore breeze.
This is the Seaton Tramway in 2023 at the new Wetlands Halt, where two silent vehicles, with no pollution at the point of use, cross paths in the passing loop every 20min on all its operating days – this year numbering an impressive 267.
Over 50 passengers absorb the tranquillity of the scene, as a dozen or so alight with binoculars and notebooks, sandwiches and flasks at the ready, to be replaced by almost equal numbers on their way to the Seaton town centre terminus. The cost of the halt was around £120,000, shared between the Tramway, the Wetlands Trust and the Fine Foundation, endowed by a local family.
Few former railway branch lines have been reinvented in such an appropriate way to satisfy the modern focus on conservation and climate-change.
There are many examples of tracks reverting to footpaths or cycle-ways, and then all our favourite heritage lines with steam or diesel locomotive noise punctuating the air waves, but none of these achieve the twin goal of the Seaton Tramway to make
