The Crab and Winkle Winding Engine
The Invicta steam locomotive, built by George and Robert Stephenson for the Canterbury-Whitstable railway (aka the ‘Crab and Winkle Line’, the world’s first steam locomotive passenger railway, 1830) was not powerful enough to haul wagons up the steep incline rising from the coast through Clowe’s Wood. The problem was solved by installing a stationary winding engine at the summit.
In 2018, to prevent the engine going to the Railway Museum in York, CCS used part of a generous bequest from Brian Porter to rescue the engine and see it installed in the Whitstable Museum.
