(Above) Harwich for the Continent, an LNER poster from 1940. © NRM
Exhibition: Time and Tide at the National Railway Museum, York until September 2010
The famous central turntable at the National Railway Museum in York, a device that has accommodated every famous locomotive from the Flying Scotsman to the Mallard, is currently playing host to a different kind of vessel - a North Sea Ferry.
The roll on roll off ferry, which visitors can explore, has been specially built and designed to fit the Museum’s great locomotive turntable and is the central exhibit in Time and Tide, a celebration the great ferry crossing from Britain across to the Hook of Holland.
With its roots in a PHD thesis exploring the experience of passengers between the Netherlands and Great Britain between 1880 and 1984, the exhibition uses the memories of passnegers to explore over 100 years of North Sea ferry crossings between Harwich and Hook, when ferries were part of the British Railways fleet.
Visitors can see the NRM turntable as never before. © NRM
A young girl, Marian Jordan, on her first ferry trip to Holland recalls:
“On our overnight crossing to Holland I was so excited, what an adventure this was going to be. The furthest we had been before was to Butlins in Skegness. I lay in my bunk puzzling at the hook on the wall at the side of my head. It was covered in red velvet at the top of a 2-inch circle of padded velvet. Whatever was its purpose? Next morning my curiosity got the better of me and I asked a member of the crew who said it was for hanging a pocket watch on. Simple really!”
Ferries have been transporting passengers to Holland since 1867 making it one of Britain’s main links with Europe. In 1890 the service began calling at Hook, which was connected to the rest of Europe by rail in 1904.
For the next 60 years, a system of boat trains linked with sailings from Harwich and until the 1970’s the trains and ferries would wait for each other before departure. It was a system of international rail and ferry connections that allowed passengers to get from all over the UK, on trains like the Hook Continental from Liverpool Street station, to European holiday hot spots including Switzerland, Berlin and Rome.
Passengers on a voyage in the 1950s. © Frank Haaljmeijer Collection
Many of the passengers who used this service over the years have sent their memories to the Museum as part of an appeal held earlier this year. These recollections bring to life tales of rough crossings, Dutch kindness and holiday adventures. There is also a selection of the many colourful posters that have promoted the ferry crossing over the years.
Sponsored by Stena Line BV, in partnership with the Spoorwegmuseum in Utrecht, objects featured in the exhibition will travel across the North Sea after it closes in September 2010, to the Spoorwegmuseum in Utrecht so Dutch visitors can also reminisce about the historic ferry route.
