Sand Hutton Light Railway

Bossall station

Claxton brickworks

Engine shed

Contemporary postcard

(All pics sourced via the Internet)

FACEBOOK - RAIL THING - AGRICULTURAL LIGHT RAILWAYS

RAIL THING WEBSITE

RAILS OF YORKSHIRE BLOG

The Sand Hutton Light Railway was an 18" gauge estate railway built on the principles developed by Sir Arthur Heywood. It replaced an earlier 15" gauge miniature railway. It connected the estate's main house with Warthill station on the LNER, and the village of Bossall.

The planned full length of the line was 7¾ miles (12.5km), the original miniature line being replaced and extended between 1920 and 1923 using materials obtained from the line at the Deptford Meat Depot in London, which has a standard gauge link and an 18" internal network.

The line ran from Warthill station to Kissthorn's Siding near the main hall, with a substantial branch serving a brickworks at Claxton. In 1923 the main line was extended to Bossall, with a further branch to Barnby being added around the same time.

The original light railway order included a half mile extension to Scrayingham but this was not built, promarily because it would have involved the construction of a large and expensive bridge across the river Derwent. This brought the total length of the built line to 5¼ miles (8.4km).

Principal traffic on the line was agricultural produce from farms on the estate together with coal to the brickworks and bricks from them. Almost all of this traffic was carried through the transfer sidings at Warthill station.

The line also carried passenger traffic between 1924 and 1930, for personnel and visitors to the estate.

The Claxton brickworks closed in 1929, the line's promoter and benefactor Sir Robert Walker died in 1930, the line closed completely in June 1932 and was dismantled by 1933.

The line employed four Hunslet steam locomotives, numbers 4 (Esme), 10, 11 and 12. These all came from the meat depot at Deptford, and all were scrapped shortly after the line closed. 75 wagons were acquired from the meat depot, all built in May 1915, together with 1 (possibly) two brakevans. At least one survived until the 1960s though its fate is unclear.

There was also one passenger coach, built new for the line in 1924 by Robert Hudson of Leeds. This seated 30 people and was very long for so narrow a gauge (31 feet 3 inches). This coach still exists, though not without some risky adventures in the past, having been a cricket pavilion at one time and also being stored outside for many years on the Lincolnshire Coast Railway (earlier incarnation), it now survives at that line's new base near Skegness.

return to east budleigh

Bicton Woodland Railway 14.5.1977 (Copyright Jeremy Tilston)

FACEBOOK - RAILS OF DEVON

Back in 1970 I'd just turned 14 and was staying on holiday down at Teignmouth with my parents. But I was allowed to buy a rover ticket for the week and spent that whole week travelling around the network down there. I didn't have a camera (that was the next year!) so despite visiting a lot of branches and the soon to be closed Okehampton line, I've no record except memories.

One of my more adventurous trips was to the Bicton Woodland Railway. This involved a trip down the Exmouth branch then a bus along to Bicton. Just 3 years earlier I could have done the whole trip by train, but the line from Exmouth, through Budleigh up to Sidmouth Junction had - incredibly - been closed in 1967!

Bicton was an odd sort of railway. A new build of course, and to the unusual gauge of 18". There was real steam there, and a big impressive diesel. Everything was painted in a pleasing deep blue livery, and the line was a pleasant one through gardens and woods. It was my first introduction to 18" gauge, and to an estate style railway.

The line is still there and hopefully I'll get to revisit it this September when we're spending a week down at Dawlish Warren.

My big regret (apart from not taking photos!) is that I didn't think of walking back from East Budleigh to Exmouth along the closed branch line!

Loco no 1.

I bought these top two postcards from the site way back in 1970!

Further info (from Wikipedia)

The Bicton Woodland Railway is a narrow gauge railway running in gardens in the grounds of Bicton House near Budleigh Salterton in Devon.

The line was built in 1962 as a tourist attraction for visitors to the house. Most of the rolling stock was acquired from the Royal Arsenal Railway, Woolwich, with two locomotives, Woolwich and Carnegie coming from that source, as well as seven goods wagons which were reduced to their frames and converted to passenger carriages. It opened to passengers in 1963. Originally locomotives and carriages had royal blue livery.

Additional rolling stock was acquired from the RAF Fauld railway and the internal railway of the LNWR Wolverton works.

In 1998 the Bicton Gardens were put up for sale and the railway put into hiatus. The new owners sold the line's existing stock and in 2000 took delivery of a 5.5-tonne diesel-powered replica tank engine. The line's original equipment was purchased by the Waltham Abbey Royal Gunpowder Mills museum at Waltham Abbey.