15th March 1884

Jersey Railway services restart

Although long since abandoned, Jersey once had a railway running the length of the south coast, from Corbière to Gorey Pier. Its first services, on the stretch between St Aubin and St Helier, ran in 1870, but it soon ran into financial difficulties. Less than four years later it was declared bankrupt and sold several times over until it closed in 1883.

A neighbouring railway, which served the quarry at La Moye had already gone bankrupt several years earlier, opening the way for the States of Jersey to amalgamate the two, which it did in 1883, and re-open them the following year as the island’s first unified railway. Unfortunately, this wasn’t much more successful than the enterprises that had preceded it, and it entered liquidation just over a decade later. Unperturbed, new owners re-opened the line the following year, now extended to Corbiére.