Grimsby District Light Railway
The secondary permanent aim was to enable materials and especially locomotives[3] to transfer between the new engine shed at Immingham and the intensively railway-served port of Grimsby and the railway-promoted seaside resort of Cleethorpes.
[12] The Great Central decided to provide a public passenger service along the line and built 240 feet (73 m)[13] single wooden platformed stations 4 miles 14 chains (6.7 km) apart named Grimsby Pyewipe Road and Immingham Halt.
[6][15][16][17] It was intended that part of the GDLR would be an electric, passenger-carrying tramway to transport highly peaked flows of workers between the dock and Grimsby, the nearest centre of population.
When it was eventually replaced in 1928, with heavy government financial backing,[18] the wind had left Grimsby Tramways' sails and they were converting to trolley bus and internal combustion engine services.
[19] A trial service was run on 6 May 1912, followed by a "Big Bang" undertaken without ceremony on 15 May 1912 when: From this point readers are referred to the Grimsby and Immingham Electric Railway article for details of the tramway's development and decline.
Electric cables running from the power station at Immingham Dock to feeders along the tramway were carried on distinctive masts along the seaward side of the GDLR's conventional line, lending it an unusual appearance.
[18] Towards the end of the Second World War Grimsby Corporation bought substantial tracts of land between the GDLR and the Humber Bank for post-war industrial development.
To match this development British Railways started to redouble the conventional GDLR line in November 1948, completing the task on 17 September 1951.
[28] The 1953 East Coast floods disrupted the electric tramway, with the GDLR's conventional line proving invaluable to ferry men and materials to effect repairs.
After the Second World War, when the expansion of industry on the Humber Bank was bringing unprecedented usage to both the conventional and electric lines, surplus tramcars were bought first from Newcastle Corporation then from Gateshead Tramways.
On 16 March 1955 The BTC Chairman, Sir Brian Robertson, visited and in a speech said that the Commission would consider running DMUs or, astonishingly, EMUs along the line if the tramway closed, but that this would only be feasible if a direct road between Grimsby and Immingham was not going to happen.
