Short-lived railway lines

[Johnnytheboy]

Insofar as I'm a railway buff I have a vague interest in long-gone railway lines.

Can anyone think of any passenger carrying railway lines that had spectacularly short lives?

My candidate is the Blandford Camp branchline, which as the name suggests, ran from the S&D station in Blandford Forum up to the army camp on a hill a couple of miles or so outside town.

Very little trace of it still exists, which is unsurprising as according to Wikipedia it existed for less than two years!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blandford_Camp#First...

Can anyone think of any other similarly flash-in-the-pan passenger lines?

[P5BNij]

One that springs to mind is the short branch that ran from somewhere on the West London Line Extension to Hammersmith, I think the passenger service lasted a handful of years before the line became freight only, with the small terminus becoming a coal yard until closure.

[DickyC]

Just before posting the Didcot, Newbury and Southampton Railway I checked. It wasn't short lived at all. Just not very good.

[100SRV]

Worcester to Bromyard line had a pretty short career. Just checked, it was just over one hundred years from proposal to Beeching's axe. Much longer than I thought.

Edited by 100SRV on Thursday 14th February 07:46

[littlebasher]

The line into Netley hospital was opened in 1900 and closed with the hospital (presumably) in 1958

There's still a bit of old track behind the Chapel

[Flying Phil]

Sadly the Great Central extension to London....built in the 1890's and largely closed in the 1960's.

[Yertis]

Johnnytheboy said:

Insofar as I'm a railway buff I have a vague interest in long-gone railway lines.

Can anyone think of any passenger carrying railway lines that had spectacularly short lives?

My candidate is the Blandford Camp branchline, which as the name suggests, ran from the S&D station in Blandford Forum up to the army camp on a hill a couple of miles or so outside town.

Very little trace of it still exists, which is unsurprising as according to Wikipedia it existed for less than two years!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blandford_Camp#First...

Can anyone think of any other similarly flash-in-the-pan passenger lines?

What was the route Johnny? I'm from round there, and a bit of an S&D fetishist. I could ever see any trace of the trackbed, or indeed where it might logically go – all hills and valleys around thereabouts. The by-pass must cross the route at some point too. But I've never seen any map or anything showing where it actually went.

[Johnnytheboy]

Yertis said:

Johnnytheboy said:

Insofar as I'm a railway buff I have a vague interest in long-gone railway lines.

Can anyone think of any passenger carrying railway lines that had spectacularly short lives?

My candidate is the Blandford Camp branchline, which as the name suggests, ran from the S&D station in Blandford Forum up to the army camp on a hill a couple of miles or so outside town.

Very little trace of it still exists, which is unsurprising as according to Wikipedia it existed for less than two years!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blandford_Camp#First...

Can anyone think of any other similarly flash-in-the-pan passenger lines?

What was the route Johnny? I'm from round there, and a bit of an S&D fetishist. I could ever see any trace of the trackbed, or indeed where it might logically go – all hills and valleys around thereabouts. The by-pass must cross the route at some point too. But I've never seen any map or anything showing where it actually went.

It's very hard to see.

On an OS map you can see an embankment curve to the east from where the station was (near the small supermarket SE of town).

I suspect it crossed the river just south of where the Wimborne roundabout is then ran up the side of the Wimborne road (notice the verge here is very wide and seems to slope up from the road around the turning to Langton Farm.

The only really noticeable trace though is a bit of a cutting covered in trees leading away from the road here:

https://goo.gl/maps/aR72tsFKsbx

Then I assume the station was near or south of the Black Lane entrance.

Must have been quite a steep line, mind!

[Wozy68]

Honeybourne to Cheltenham line. Pretty sure it didnt last more than 70 years...... Stupid mistake to close it and especially the station at Cheltenham, the only one survivng is a damn long walk into the centre of the town and miles from the racecourse where there was once one .... (Now reopened as a heritage station but sadly not connected to the mainline.

[Johnnytheboy]

No one has beaten my 2-year record so I'll add another Dorset line:

The Bridport to West Bay line was opened in 1884 and closed to passenger traffic in 1932.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridport_Railway

[ElectricSoup]

DickyC said:

Just before posting the Didcot, Newbury and Southampton Railway I checked. It wasn't short lived at all. Just not very good.

That's the route of the current A34. Would come in handy to alleviate traffic on that route these days.

[DickyC]

ElectricSoup said:

DickyC said:

Just before posting the Didcot, Newbury and Southampton Railway I checked. It wasn't short lived at all. Just not very good.

That's the route of the current A34. Would come in handy to alleviate traffic on that route these days.

Parts of it were used for the Newbury Bypass. The bypass is much wider than the railway was but it was still a good idea.

[Europa1]

The Poppyland line, which ran from North Walsham through Knapton, Mundesley, Overstrand to Cromer High station, opened 1906, closed 1953.

[theboss]

Wozy68 said:

Honeybourne to Cheltenham line. Pretty sure it didnt last more than 70 years...... Stupid mistake to close it and especially the station at Cheltenham, the only one survivng is a damn long walk into the centre of the town and miles from the racecourse where there was once one .... (Now reopened as a heritage station but sadly not connected to the mainline.

The alignment is pretty well intact at the Cheltenham end, save for the Waitrose development. Its the Stratford end which has been obliterated - very short sighted indeed. Its madness that these mothballed transport corridors weren't preserved when you consider the prohibitive cost of re-instating them.

[boyse7en]

The Lynton to Barnstaple line was built in 1898 and closed in 1935, which isn't a very long life considering how hard it must have been to build in the first place (very hilly terrain)
There been an ongoing program to try and rebuild it, which will be a challenge as a good chunk of the route is now under a reservoir.

[karma mechanic]

DickyC said:

Parts of it were used for the Newbury Bypass. The bypass is much wider than the railway was but it was still a good idea.

The DN&S railway certainly came in handy during the war - in the lead up to D-Day 16,000 trains crossed the Hockley Viaduct to join the main line at Shawford Junction. The viaduct is still there, all 2000 feet and 33 arches of it.

[P5BNij]

Wozy68 said:

Honeybourne to Cheltenham line. Pretty sure it didnt last more than 70 years...... Stupid mistake to close it and especially the station at Cheltenham, the only one survivng is a damn long walk into the centre of the town and miles from the racecourse where there was once one .... (Now reopened as a heritage station but sadly not connected to the mainline.

Opened c.1910, reduced to secondary mainline status c.1960 when most of the important through trains were diverted via the Midland route down the Lickey. After that it was still used as a diversionary route for freight and passenger and a very sparse local service but it dwindled even more so in the early '70s. Regular Cheltenham Raceday specials continued to run until March '68, the usual starting points being Wolverhampton, Cardiff and Paddington. The very last train ran in August '76, a Washwood Heath - Severn Tunnel Junction freight which derailed at Winchcombe causing serious damage to the p/way, serious enough to deem it not worth relaying and leading to the line's official closure. The rails weren't lifted until 1979 though. I remember going down there fairly regularly in the '70s seeing diverted freights hauled by Hymeks, Westerns, Peak, 20s, 47s etc and the odd passenger, one particular memory is seeing D1052 'Western Viceroy' on a Plymouth - Derby railtour in March '75.

One of our recently retired drivers started as a secondman at Saltley in the early '70s, he remembers going down to Gloucester and back several times with an ex-Tyseley driver on class 7 and class 8 freight workings, he said once you got past Stratford it was like being on your own private railway by then.

Edited by P5BNij on Thursday 14th February 14:41

[DickyC]

karma mechanic said:

The DN&S railway certainly came in handy during the war - in the lead up to D-Day 16,000 trains crossed the Hockley Viaduct to join the main line at Shawford Junction. The viaduct is still there, all 2000 feet and 33 arches of it.

Some stretches I understand were increased from single to double track just for D-Day.

[rs1952]

DickyC said:

karma mechanic said:

The DN&S railway certainly came in handy during the war - in the lead up to D-Day 16,000 trains crossed the Hockley Viaduct to join the main line at Shawford Junction. The viaduct is still there, all 2000 feet and 33 arches of it.

Some stretches I understand were increased from single to double track just for D-Day.

The line was virtually rebuilt in prepartion for D-Day

[rs1952]

Johnnytheboy said:

No one has beaten my 2-year record so I'll add another Dorset line:

The Bridport to West Bay line was opened in 1884 and closed to passenger traffic in 1932.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridport_Railway

The history books are actually littered with very short-lived railways, usually built for a specific temporary purpose (eg a terminal station provided until a main line connection could be built) or often in wartime. The closest I can think of to the Blandford line mentioned above is the Knockaloe Railway on the Isle of Man. That lasted for 5 years between 1915 and 1920.The Isle of Man was used for holding POWs and sundry aliens who might have been considered a threat in both world wars, but by WW2 road transport had generally improved and there was little need to build such lines any more

https://www.knockaloe.im/page_391035.html

In more recent years there was the saga of the Derby to Sinfin Central line, opened in 1976 and finally closed in 1993, although you could say that it was dead but wouldn’t lie down for some years by then:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinfin_Branch_Line