was said to have taken part in a locomotive race on the track. Howey might have given up motor racing after his brother’s fatal crash, but he still took to the highway in various impressive vehicles selected from his extensive garage, including ‘Chitty’, SSK Mercedes and a Hispano- Suiza. John’s 1914 Silver Ghost shooting-brake is also worthy of note, for in the autumn of 1930 he built a locomotive based on the Rolls-Royce engine and chassis. With its enclosed cab it made life so much easier when providing a winter serv- ice on the line, different from the conventional loco, with the driver suffering on the exposed footplate. Hauling four Clayton coaches, Howey was timed at 60mph during one speed session. Later the Ghost engine was replaced with a Ford V8 unit, with this unique locomotive providing a regular winter service for the public until 1961. Ever the one for speed, in 1929 John had built ‘something of a motor roller skate’ – a single-seater powered by a 6hp JAP motorcycle engine. This vehicle was his personal ‘deadly weapon’ in which he covered the 8½ miles between Hythe and New Romney in 8½ minutes, sustaining a speed of around 70mph!
First line of defence
Such a light-hearted approach was not to last as the international situation dramatically changed in the late 1930s. The military considered that the beaches to the west of the White Cliffs of Dover between Hythe and Rye would have to be made
Howey in around 1960 (RH&DR Association Heritage Group Collection).
the first line of defence of England. By June 1940 the RH&DR had been taken over by the Somerset Light Infantry and soon an armoured train was running on the line. Other units also ran the railway during the war, including a Canadian force and later the Home Railways Department of the War Office under the command of Major Kenneth Cantlie who was a Crewe-trained railway engineer and who knew how to get his team of Royal Engineers to run this unique line. By 1943 some of the great concrete pontoons that were to make up the D Day Mulberry harbours were being constructed at Littlestone as well as the PLUTO (Pipe Line Under the Ocean) pipes that would carry
petrol under the
Channel to France from pumping stations around Dungeness.
Meanwhile John Howey had spent his war years living near Ascot and driving a YMCA canteen truck, serving soldiers training in the Surrey Heath area. He regained control of the railway in June 1945 but it was in such a sorry state that the RH&DR did not re-open until March 1946. Immediately after the war passenger numbers increased considerably, but the railway was also to suffer from management and staff changes and financial troubles over the years. Nevertheless it managed to attract a greater number of passengers than many, if not all, of the other miniature and
The last time Capt Howey climbed aboard the footplate of one of his locos. He was standing watching Green Goddess and her driver, George Barlow, offered to take his picture (RH&DR Association Heritage Group Collection).
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