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Alexander Carlisle Schwab entered into life on 12th March 1905. His grandfather had come to England from Germany some years earlier, and the family home had been established at Sheffield.
After attending private schools as a day-boy, Alex Schwab went up to Cambridge (Emmanuel College) in 1922. He took a 3rd in Mechanical Sciences in 1926, and took his MA in 1933.
He was a gifted engineer, and was due to study under R. E. L. Maunsell, the Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Southern Railway, at Ashford Railway Works, when medical advice suddenly cut short his career, following a recurrence at Cambridge of an earlier middle-ear infection, which had first struck him at secondary school. Despite undergoing painful surgery, Alex Schwab was unable to take up his pupilage, or to advance his career.
Alex Schwab’s father, Frank Clement Schwab, anticipating the pupilage under Maunsell, had relocated the family from Sheffield to Saltwood in 1924, the same year as his own early retirement. When Alex’s career collapsed, both men turned their full attentions to the Saltwood Miniature Railway as a life-long project in engineering.
Alex Schwab was not only a talented engineer, but also a very gifted sculptor, despite taking up this interest only after his 40th birthday! A studio was built in the grounds at Saltwood, and many local children modeled for him there. Alex Schwab’s particular talent was for the sculpting of life statuettes and busts of children. Five of his pieces were exhibited at the Society of watercolour Sculptors’ Exhibition, and in 1963 one piece was displayed in the Royal Academy.
Alex Schwab was an avid tennis fan and belonged to Hythe Tennis Club from 1932 onwards. His playing only ended with his deepening illness.
Around 1970 Alex was taken ill, and diagnosed with mental health problems. The Saltwood Miniature Railway closed, and it’s owner’s behaviour became increasingly erratic, to the concern of neighbours and villagers generally. For four years doctors treated him, and attempted to return the balance of his mind to normal. During this time his physical health also suffered, and Alex Schwab even had the eerie experience of reading his own obituary in a leading railway magazine, which had responded to premature rumours of Schwab’s demise!
Happily, recovery came, and at the end of 1974 the railway re-opened. Alex Schwab also resumed his daily walk to Hythe where he would often spend time on the beech, and where he continued to visit the Tennis Club. His playing days were now over, but he took on responsibility for trimming the hedges around the courts.
Alex Schwab died in 1987, his funeral being conducted at a crematorium between Canterbury and Folkestone by the Revd. Canon Guy L’Estrange, the Rector of Saltwood, who had been for twenty years a regular passenger on the railway. Thus closed a chapter of railway history, and the Saltwood Miniature Railway never ran again.
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