Bishop's Castle Railway

Lydham Heath

Horderley 1935

Stretford Bridge junction

Bishop's Castle in 1939

Bishop's Castle in 1905

(All pics sourced via Google)

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One of the UK's less well known minor railways was the Bishop's Castle Railway. It had a troubled history and was always in financial difficulties.

Building of the line commenced in 1861, well before the Light Railway Act, though it shared many light railway characteristics - poverty, second hand locos and a general run down feel. The line was planned as a through route from Craven Arms to Montgomery, with a short branch from Lydham Heath to Bishop's Castle. In the end the Lydham Heath to Montgomery section was never built, making the completed route Craven Arms to Bishop's Castle with a  reversal at Lydham Heath. The line was completed and opened for traffic (in its truncated form) in 1865 and was sold into receivership in 1867, remaining in this situation until closure in 1935. Bus services on adjacent roads commenced as early as 1900 putting further pressure on the line, but it struggled on loyally supported by locals, staff and management for another 35 years.

A major issue was that the land on which the line ran had never been paid for, and when the agreement was changed to a rental basis the rent wasn't paid either!

The line closed completely on 20 April 1935 and the line had been lifted by 1937, the steel being used in the building of HMS Prince of Wales.

The line had stations at Stretford Bridge Junction (halt), Horderley, Plowden, Eaton, Lydham Heath and Bishop's Castle.

The line was worked purely by steam, seven locos were used in all. The most famous was 'Carlisle', an 1868 built 0-6-0 tender engine.

Much of the line is still traceable (2017) and the easternmost section has been incorporated into the Onny Trail. The whole route run for ten and a half miles through lovely countryside.

The Bishop's Castle Railway and Transport Museum, which celebrates the line, opened in 1989. This is staffed by volunteers from the Bishop's Castle Railway Society.

Source and more info

Cooksbridge in 1977

COOKSBRIDGE

(All 4.7.1977 Copyright Steve Sainsbury/Rail Thing)

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Back in 1977 I was often out on my motorbike visiting the more obscure parts of the railway network in Sussex, Hampshire and Dorset.

A strange little line (to me at least) is the line that runs from Keymer Junction down to Lewes, stopping at Cooksbridge and Plumpton. This was a line I simply wouldn't use living in Littlehampton. It gives a (sort of) direct route from Eastbourne to London (now the Cuckoo Line is closed), but seemed like a bit of a backwater with few trains stopping at the stations outside of rush hour.

This was Cooksbridge in 1977. It still had the old style target nameplates (I can't remember seeing this anywhere else), a signalbox and classic station buildings. I even managed to catch a train coming through whilst I was there ...

Down the Line

Crowborough

Isfield

Oxted

(All pics 1970s copyright Steve Sainsbury/Rail Thing)

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Over the last few years The Rail Thing has expanded from a single Facebook group into over 500, there is of course also a website and this blog. But alongside the Rail Thing groups I've also built about 50 Flashback groups, which look at various aspects of social history and places. Two of these groups have over 5000 members, others are a lot smaller.

I've decided to try to combine these two interests and Down the Line - Oxted to Lewes is the first. The idea is to set the railway within a social history framework, and vice versa. Railways were - and soon will be again - the very centre of social life and history, so it seems a logical development.

If successful (and I'm sure it will be!) this will be rolled out over many different rail routes (Littlehampton to Portsmouth Harbour will be next) over the next year or so.

What I'm looking for is both railway pictures and pictures of the towns and villages through which the line runs or ran. These can be recent or older of course, as history never stops. It may even get some civilians interested in railways, or even get railfans interested in more than just railways! And it may bring out some really interesting and unseen pics linking the two!

Viennese Whirl

(All Vienna 14-16.1.2016 copyright Steve Sainsbury/Rail Thing)

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I've just returned from a long weekend in Vienna. Despite visiting the city twice before, both times were very quick visits, just a couple of hours. Each time I got to photograph the trams, but I really got into this last weekend!

Vienna still has a very large network of trams, and has recently opened new routes. Most are end to end routes but they also merge to run around part of Vienna's famous Ringstrasse. What this means is that you can plonk yourself anywhere on the Ring and there is a constant procession of trams, sometimes runnimng just a few feet apart. There are cheap day and multi-day tickets which you can use to hop on and off the trams (plus local trains and buses). 

Also along the Ring the light railway to Baden has a station, this line uses the tramway to exit the city but then runs as a heavy railway until it reaches Baden, where it regains the street. Sadly I didn't get the chance to travel on this - you really need a week in Vienna to even see a small amount!

Vienna is a fantastic city with amazing buildings from the days of Empire, and of course great coffee shops! 3 days simply wasn't enough ... in the words of a famous Austrian 'I'll be back!'