The LNER Encyclopedia

Hello all,

I was reading a book called London's Strangest Tales by Tom Quinn recently, and came across an intriguing reference in a chapter about London's Coliseum Theatre. After some discussion regarding the odd spelling of the theatre's name (theoretically it should be Colosseum) there is a tantalising line right at the end, which piqued my interest:

"The Coliseum also had its own post box and its own railway, the latter designed to take VIPs from the door to their seats!"

Does anyone here know if this is true? It sounds bizarre, as the best seats in a theatre would presumably be only a maximum of a few dozen yards from the door in terms of distance, but would not be at ground level, so any such railway would have to cope with ludicrous gradients. Has anyone ever read of or seen pictures of such a railway? The Coliseum was opened in 1904, so the prevailing technology would have been steam, but I suppose it could also have been drawn by winches and cables, by a funicular or rack system, or even with early electric traction.

I imagine that there must be people here who have read far more on railways then I have, so if anyone has read about or knows anything about this tiny, whimsical system, then I would be glad to hear about it.

Matt D wrote:Hello all,

I was reading a book called London's Strangest Tales by Tom Quinn recently, and came across an intriguing reference in a chapter about London's Coliseum Theatre. After some discussion regarding the odd spelling of the theatre's name (theoretically it should be Colosseum) there is a tantalising line right at the end, which piqued my interest:

"The Coliseum also had its own post box and its own railway, the latter designed to take VIPs from the door to their seats!"

Does anyone here know if this is true? It sounds bizarre, as the best seats in a theatre would presumably be only a maximum of a few dozen yards from the door in terms of distance, but would not be at ground level, so any such railway would have to cope with ludicrous gradients. Has anyone ever read of or seen pictures of such a railway? The Coliseum was opened in 1904, so the prevailing technology would have been steam, but I suppose it could also have been drawn by winches and cables, by a funicular or rack system, or even with early electric traction.

I imagine that there must be people here who have read far more on railways then I have, so if anyone has read about or knows anything about this tiny, whimsical system, then I would be glad to hear about it.

found this it appears to be in essence a moveable room on tracks but there is no picture

http://www.arthurlloyd.co.uk/LondonColiseum.htm

ps
it may have been a lift as this was the first theatre to have them to get the audiance to their seats

Hi Third,

Thanks for that. I did have a look around the internet before I posted, so I'm not sure how I missed it. Perhaps I spelled it wrongly (or correctly, depending on how you see it). I see that what was described as a railway in the book was really a lateral form of lift, and so owes more to the glass elevator in Roald Dahl's Willy Wonka books than a railway as we would know it. But the fact that it was on rails clearly caught the imagination of the author. The lifts are described separately in the chapter, so I do not think they were part of the same system.

Also, you have to bear in mind that 1904 was during the reign of Edward VII, who was very fond of his mistresses. I strongly suspect that this sytem would have been installed mainly to allow the King and other VIPs to get from front of house to their boxes with their mistresses without being seen by the general public. Although society at the time had a hypocritical blind spot with regards to the extra-marital goings-on of the upper echelons, it still would not have been wise to advertise them. Note how the moving chamber is also described as providing an ante-room during intervals, again allowing the occupants a degree of privacy not allowed to the other patrons. A theatre would have had to provide such spaces to wealthy visitors, or face the prospect of them staying away. The fact that it moved and therefore had a slightly futuristic aspect would have been an added advantage.