Volks Electric Railway Association

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Volks Electric Railway Association

The Volk's Electric Railway Association was set up to provide volunteer assistance to the world's oldest surviving electric railway.

The association provides volunteers labour, promotional activities and has become the keeper of many historic artifacts.

31/08/2026

A round-up from the 25th the last volunteer day of August - where is this year going?

Whilst Les was busy doing technical stuff on Car 8, Brian 2 was demonstrating driving instruction with Ken.
Maurice, Eric, Phil, Ruth & David changed a stubborn fishplate and tightened some nuts along the line towards Black Rock.
Then Tim, Brian 1, Simon, Ian & Chris 2 donned hard hats to assist the scrap man in loading up an assortment of metal items.

Coffee break was a bit quieter as Tim went through the cashiering process with Chris 2, Ian & Les for this weekend's late running. By the way, the orange box in the foreground of that picture no longer contains cream crackers, but many wonderful cakes that appear with Les now and again.

My thanks to all who provided the pictures.

24/08/2026

Upcoming events for this autumn on Volk's Railway

14/08/2026

Some pictures from Les of events at the railway on Tuesday 11th. Work continued on the evaluation of Southend 9's axle boxes in the south shed while out on the track we were treated to the sight of two doubles running in public service, well for an hour or so. Pictures are captioned as usual....

09/08/2026

Following on from Les's last post here's some more details from the volunteer day on Tuesday 4 August. It was well attended with 12 there, including a new member, Ian.

Leaving Les & Brian 2 to get on with their bits and pieces as already reported in the previous post the remaining volunteers were split into two groups. Ruth, Eric, David & Ian went off to Aquarium to move vast quantities of litter, whilst Tim, Barry, Ken, Phil, Chris 2 & 3 worked with Maurice to move an exceedingly heavy lump of metal (see last post) from the Workshop over to the scrap pile, to allow this area of the shop to be refurbished. This resulted in a lot of muscle exercise, much head scratching, but eventual success as shown in these photographs (thanks to Phil)

And so to coffee and cakes, although Ruth didn't make it as she and Tal were chasing what they thought was a stray dog around Halfway. Better luck next time.

07/08/2026

Under the workshop in the arch is a basement that was used to store all sorts of thing, some of which have us stumped as to what they were. This is one of the those items, and big and chunky it is as well. It's made of steel, weighs a considerable amount and is destined for the scrap pile. Anyone have a clue as to what it is/was?

06/08/2026

With the excitement of the 4 train operation last Saturday the railway returned to normal operation this week. There was still some reason to celebrate as this week marks the 143rd birthday of the railway - what better reason for cake!
My thanks to Les for these pictures.

03/08/2026

For those who remember the days of single car operation, 10 minute interval service and cars passing in both east and west loops then last Saturday was a real treat. While other railways have had to switch to diesel operation because of the fire risk, our vintage electric railcars operated faultlessly as these pictures show - thanks to Les and others for the pictures......

30/07/2026

Plenty happening in the 28th July with pictures from Les and Phil. It's all hands together to get things ready for the 4 train service on Saturday. We can always do with more hands so please email Mick at [email protected] if you would like to join out happy band.

𝑵𝒐𝒘 𝒃𝒂𝒄𝒌 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝟐𝟖𝒕𝒉:
Tim & David were marking the East & West loops' Car stopping points with yellow paint prior to the weekend. Ruth joined Mick on an extreme litter-pick around the area bordering the Party on the Beach 2026 site, that was being dismantled, after she had assisted Ken with infrastructure work.
Eric, Maurice & Phil swapped over the fishplates at the West end of the West loop, prior to Maurice changing over the springs on the points at each end of the loop.
Les, Brian 2 and Chris 2 removed axle boxes from the car so that they could have their routine axle testing for cracks carried out, all cars found to be good and passed with flying colours.
Tim and Mick covered the VERA driving shift.
Les and Brian did some work on Southend car 9 including removing of one axle box covers to inspect the inside arrangement.
And to top it all Les' wife very kindly provided yet more very nice cakes.
𝙃𝙤𝙥𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙨𝙚𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙤𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝟏𝙨𝙩 𝘼𝙪𝙜𝙪𝙨𝙩 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙛𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙞𝙣 𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙫𝙞𝙘𝙚....

28/07/2026

𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐚𝐩𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚 𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐫𝐮𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐨𝐧 𝐀𝐮𝐠𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝟏𝐬𝐭. 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐛𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐩𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐛𝐞 𝐫𝐮𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐚 𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐩𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐛𝐨𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐩𝐬 𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐚𝐭 𝐇𝐚𝐥𝐟𝐰𝐚𝐲. 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐛𝐞 𝐚 𝟏𝟎 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐭𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐚𝐥 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡 𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝟏𝟏𝐚𝐦 𝐨𝐧𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐬. 𝐈𝐟 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐜𝐤 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬.

For the day each train will have a driver and a driver assistant.

The line is split into 4 sections, each with their own coloured token:
Aquarium Station to West Loop (Red Token)
West Loop to Halfway (Yellow Token)
Halfway to East Loop (Blue Token)
East Loop to Black Rock Station (White Token)
The possession of which allows the driver to enter that particular section of track.

There is a yellow line at each loop where the drivers must exchange their tokens before continuing.

𝑺𝒐 𝒊𝒇 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒆𝒆 𝑽𝒐𝒍𝒌'𝒔 𝒂𝒔 𝒊𝒕 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒓𝒖𝒏 𝒃𝒆𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒅𝒂𝒚𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒕𝒘𝒐 𝒄𝒂𝒓 𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒊𝒏𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒑𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒆 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒆 𝒂𝒍𝒐𝒏𝒈 𝒐𝒏 𝑺𝒂𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒅𝒂𝒚 𝑨𝒖𝒈𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝟏𝒔𝒕.

Address

Madeira Drive
Brighton And Hove
BN21EN

Website

http://www.volkselectricrailway.co.uk/

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