OTD 1972: Cliff Railway at Bridgnorth

ATV Today’s Sue Jay reports from the Cliff railway service at Bridgnorth, England’s oldest and steepest inland electric funicular railway. Sue is taught to drive a train by Mrs Gladys Cox the train driver. The item also features views of the Bridgnorth cliff railway and a high-angle view looking down at the River Severn in Shropshire.

The official website of the service notes that ‘for over a century Bridgnorth Cliff Railway has been transporting the people of Bridgnorth up and down the 111 ft sandstone cliffs that separate High Town from Low Town, and the River Severn.’ And that ‘the railway operates two cars on parallel tracks. Connected by steel ropes, the carriages serve to counterbalance each other – as one rises to the top station, the other runs to the bottom station. The cars are now powered by an electric winding engine, but were originally driven by a system of water balance, each carriage carrying water ballast in a tank beneath the passenger compartment.’