Railways

Hello King Cobra,

Cardington did have a rail yard. Its construction is a lot later than you would expect though (railways are not an area I know much about locally but..) I am led to believe it was constructed in the late 50's or early 60's and was as you said part of the Bedford & Hitchin Branch line. The the first yard from the 30's was built as a spur from the existing Cardington village station ( which I suspect was the earlier 'Cardington Workman's platform' ) and ran parallel to the main line adjacent to the airfield. At some point this was then extended in to the camp and split with one spur heading north to the camp workshops and the other south west past the northern hanger. To my knowledge nothing remains of the railway, there is a small section of roadway which was later built on the line though left... most was removed with development of the DSA building (which is build directly over the northern spur).

It would need research to confirm but I think the Cardington yard was only linked to the Bedford Southern Goods yard (now under the county hall car park and used by Danfoss in Ampthill Road, Bedford) as the line south of Cardington to Hitchin was axed in 1964.

Need to dig out my notes for Henlow to be sure of the dates.


# looking at my notes some sources cite the closure of the Bedford & Hitchin Branch as 1st January 1962 for passengers but not until 1969 for freight

Able wrote:

Also at a small location at Holton-Le-Moor (A46) there was a Spur off just after the level crossing into some kind of AM site. The hutting was still extent for some years and even now you can see several near the crossing.
What kinda AM. site ?? i dont know but would like to ...

Assume this is it? The trackbed appears to run north-east to Nettleton Top and into some kind of compound / yard.

www.flashearth.com/?lat=53.463535&lon=-0...&z=14.7&r=0&src="msl"

Jenna

Going through my books I have the closure of Hitchin - Bedford line as 1/1/62 as well.

canberra;45504 wrote:

How many RAF and indeed other military airfields had/have railay lines in to them or railway stations?

Only just seen this thread, RAF St Athan was built with an internal railway system which served the Aircraft Repair Depot element of West Camp. It ran from the main Llantwit Major branch line before entering the site through a weigh bridge and splitting in to two tracks serving the stores, workshops, and double sized fuel store.
This rail system was the last in RAF use when it was disestablished in February 1973, though the rails, weigh bridge, unloading platforms and pilot engine (locomotive) house still survive, as does one of the locos in a private collection, www.philt.org.uk/Industrial/Ind-DE/18143...1396660905&k=S89W7D6 .

St Athan was also served by its own stations, St Athan Halt as well as Gileston also on the Llantwit line, nearby RAF Llandow was served by Llandow Holt. There was a stop at Rhoose, though unsure how far from ,and if it served the RAF station there.

The trackbed does run to a yard but a little further up and to the right there are military roads that i didnt know existed. There do not seem to go anywhere so i will be going to investigate. Could it of been a munitions storage depot for the Army camp i believe was in the area at the time?

There was was also a slave station on the North-Eastern GEE chain at Caistor some time after Apr 1944 and it was later refered to as Nettleton GEE. It is not known if it was located with RAF Caistor, the ASPIRIN site or somewhere in the area competely separately. However, this site, equipped with AMES 7722, was moved to Nettleton because of poor coverage in the intended zones from its initial site at Stenigot .

Excuse the rough and ready.

The spur from the main line traced here in 1968. There was a parallel section just before the rejoin to the mainline to allow passing trains.(not drawn in)

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Yes that's how I understood the finial layout to be, the track south of the station (on the right of the shot) was removed after the line closed making the sidings the 'end of the line' from Bedford.

King wrote:

Very late to this thread but most closures recommended by the Beeching Report were signed off by Labour as Marples and Co. were kicked out barley a year after the report was published.
Back on topic, RAF Cardington was adjacent to Cardington station on the Hitchin to Bedford line - the line that served RAF Henlow - but I'm not sure if the route of the railway was within the camp's boundary nor if there were any sidings serving the camp at any time.

Added OS 1922 map layouts to the RAF Henlow thread.
/community/showthread.php?454-Henlow&p=125896#post125896

And RAF Halton. Left the Line from Wendover to Aylesbury.