Memories of the Spalding - March Line - 1982
Вставка
- Опубліковано 27 сер 2019
- This Archive VHS Video was filmed by John Honnor just before the line closed in 1982. I produced the Video later in 1992. Thanks to John who has agreed that it be shared on here, I hope you enjoy watching.
- Авто та транспорт
I was born in 1950s..Most of what i grew up with & knew, is gone....the things that made life, human.....
Wow , what a gem - semaphore signal, manual crossing gates and big telegraph poles. Thank you Roy. Sleaford was my home town.
Thank you for uploading this footage. It's a shame this line closed, I feel this line would be of great use if it was still open.
Another great upload Roy, thank you for your efforts in showing the heyday of the BR Blue period as I remember them. The shortsightedness of Railway Boards and Government ministers back then who can see no further than their time in office has cost us dearly. If this line had have been retained for future prosperity there would have been no need for the £100's of millions being spent on the new Werrington fly under to allow freight trains to miss the bottle neck at Stoke Tunnel and allow for faster running in & out of Peterborough for passenger trains on the ECML. Branching off at March and continuing to Spalding would have been a much more direct route to Doncaster than the circuitous route via Peterborough.Let's not even get started on Cambridge to Oxford. I guess hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Even the muddle and get nowhere line out of Bytham, Bourne, Spalding and out to Kings Lynn would have been very useful today. There still isn’t even a full time bus link from Spalding to Bourne to this day. Two very paralleled communities in the same county only 12 miles apart!!
Even in this video, the two lines that went off immediately before the March lines shown here were long gone. It’s so sad to see.
The Shortsighted folly has spread like a cancer in the UK. We are paying in many ways and we may see the UK split like Yugoslavia did
Great to see the cab ride from March passing through Grassmoor and beyond. It's a route i never travelled on, even though I visited March and its MPD on various occasions.
Glad you enjoyed it
Great videos of the past. When I was a kid those Cravens units always terrified me with that rasping sound they made while accelerating. Really tingly hearing them again after so long.
This has to be one of my favourite videos Roy, particularly as it is local to me. Absolutely priceless footage of a much missed line. How useful it would be today to save all the freight going via Peterborough.
I loved the Cravens 105s (sad I know!) and spent many happy years travelling around East Anglia viewing the routes from the front seats! Seeing the 120s also brought back memories- we used to think they were pure luxury with their comfy seats with headrests and being surrounded by wooden panelling, oval mirrors and nice lighting. Swindon built them well.
So thanks Roy and John for such a special video of much missed British Rail line.
cravensdmufan they spent so much time on the interiors of the Class 120s (and the Swindon Inter-City set) that they ran out of time to design a nice front end. At least they made up for it with the Class 123!
Agreed. March to Spalding should reopen for freight traffic at least!
...archive film like this is worth its weight in gold, thank you so much for sharing, can remember in my own area around Norwich those Dmu's particularly Cravens class, didn't look like much but they were usually power twins so had loads of power! also more rarely the Swindon class I called them posh because of the comfy seats and tables same as the BR MK 1's. Best of all I used to loved the way they rocked from side to side and watch the passengers fall asleep! 👌
In 1982, the railways were having a very hard time; in 2019 the railways are thriving so much that they now lack the capacity they need to provide all the additional services required for both passenger and freight traffic.
Therefore, why not reopen as many closed routes and stations as is possible to provide the capacity required for these additional services? Lines singled should be redoubled like they used to be, and former routes that had 4 tracks should have them reinstated which would greatly help to ease the capacity problem.
Thank you Roy and John for 38 minutes of pure enjoyment, including a cab ride and the signal box visits. This is one route that I was not able to travel over
before it closed. The views from the cab shows what a nice scenic route it was.
YES REOPEN A GREAT DEAL OF THE CLOSED RAIL ROUTES AND RAUISE THE NECESSARY FUNDS BY TAXING HEAVILY THE VERY RICH FAT CATS WHO UNLAWFULLT GET FAR TOO MUCH FOR DOING LITTLE WORK, WHILST THOSE WHO DO MOST OF THEW REAL WORK UNLAWFULLY GET UNDER HALF THE LEGAL WAGES TO COVER INFLATION PRICE RISES IN 45 YEARS !!!!.
David Lyas only 2 flies in the ointment as far as I can see:
1. We've built on many of the closed railway lines, for example the A16 to the north of Spalding is on the track bed of the line from Spalding to Boston;
2. By the time we've made these changes the country will be in recession again and the extra capacity won't be needed again.
This line was opened to increase capacity for the freight trains running from South Yorkshir to East Anglia and London, and closed because the country was in the grip of a recession and thus was costing the tax-payer much more than it was earning (costing more than was acceptable that is). By closure there were only 3 passenger trains each way plus freight trains.
Oh, this brought back memories of travelling from Ely to Lincoln - thank you so very much.
Glad you enjoyed it
Excellent video. Great variety of DMU's. Have a soft spot for the Cravens
Thank you Roy for the amazing video, especially the rare cab ride from March to Spalding.
Happy days when one could sit in the front seats of a dmu and get a nearly driver's eye view as long as the blind weren't pulled down. I did some video filming myself in the 1980s. Just occasionally one was lucky enough to be invited into the cab. Best view on the line was approaching Lincoln where the cathedral suddenly appeared framed in a bridge as you rounded a curve.
Marvellous footage of a line lost for ever, especially if you've watched the "Rediscovering Lost Railways" series relating to this line. Amazing how some of the signal boxes and stations are now private residences!
Always worth another watch....great piece of railway history.
Thank you Jim
superb film brings back so many memories
Great video. March and Spalding had fantastic stations.
I used to live in Murrow, later living on station Road in March, and daily commuted via March station to Stansted, it would have been very handy to still have a station in Murrow! Thanks for posting this video as I always wanted to see what the line looked like when in operation.
Glad you found it interesting.
It all looks very dilapidated, like the last days of the Bluebell Line, but with no preservation, society to come to the rescue! Thanks for uploading.
I agree!
That signal box at Murrow West was a thing of beauty, I've just googled it and its now a private house, lucky people who live there !
Wow! Good old John !
Good video, such a smart livery this is.. all were like that, better than today’s ones.
Always a great watch on this channel, another beautiful video 👍👍👍
Thank you
Great vid, not from the area but do pass through Rings End now and again, I often wondered where the bridge led to. on Google maps you can see the scar on the countryside where the tracks once ran from March to Spalding
I remember double headed class 25s on the Harwich PQ to Manchester (or it was it Sheffield ) with MK1 carraiges in the back platform at March!!Before it took the Joint line to Spalding in the 70s!! I remember one of the last DMUs about to depart March for Spalding and was about to jump on it and I bottled it `cos I wasn`t sure if I had enough for a ticket or how I could get back.How I regret not jumping on it and not taking the chance!! I could probably have got back via Peterborough! regrets!!
Used to love those DMUs as a kid .
Thanks for sharing this Roy! Amazing footage, shame the line had to close!
Yes it was
It beggars belief that as late as 1982 we were still closing passenger lines. Even at that point population growth could be seen to justify these lines not far in the future.
Yes Andy, now they have been dismantled, I don't think they will ever return.
What a loss...
Channel 4 test card music! 1982! A TIME WHEN TRAINS WERE REAL TRAINS AND LONGER THAN NOWADAYS!
❤ your content its always so interesting
I noticed around 12:40 the unmistakable sound of a jet fighter. Just think back to the bases in the area that that jet could have taken off from. Many of those bases now closed or tiny shadows of their former selves.
Interesting. What are, or were the nearby camps in that area? I myself live "next door" to a former RAF base, which went Army a few years ago.
@@commandingjudgedredd1841 So many of them, both British and USAF. Bentwaters, Martlesham, Mildenhall, Lakenheath, Marham, Honington, Alconbury, Wyton. There were also those around Lincolnshire, the names of which do not spring readily to mind. The sky was filled with war birds!
@@peebee143 Mine was RAF Kinloss. Phew. That's a lot. I used to live near one of the Lincolnshire bases (as a baby) as my dad was air force. We stayed at Waddington, during its V bomber days.
@@commandingjudgedredd1841 On rare occasions (maybe displays or practice??) we used to see two Vulcans nose to tail with six Lightnings in a large lozenge around the two V bombers near where I used to live in North London.
peebee143 it might not have even been from a local base, but one using the Wash ranges.
that was great thank you!
This line was a useful diversion for freight traffic heading north to Yorkshire and beyond. Now all freight traffic has to go via the bottleneck of Peterborough which is a nightmare at the best of times…
French Drove &Gedney..lovely GE style and oh, the West Murrow signal box!
Great vedio
Thank you for sharing this with us. I travelled on this line on its last day of operation and to my eternal shame, never thought to take my camera with me. I note the signal adjacent to the house at Twenty Feet River crossing still stands, protecting a long-gone crossing... I also wonder that if it had been possible to retain the line, would the Werrington dive-under have been needed?
Howard Le Vert this line was another casualty of the recession of the early 1980s. The cost of maintaining the line compared to the revenue it was generating was the finsl nail in its coffin. The costs for moth-balling the line would have been astronomical, even for a few years, when there was capacity available on the route via Peterborough and I can't see the Treasury paying for it, after all they didn't want to fund the HST fleet that BR actually needed.
@@neildahlgaard-sigsworth3819 I did wonder what the contributory reasons were for its closure, thanks for your insight :)
@@neildahlgaard-sigsworth3819 Irritating to know that they actually paid overtime and worked Sundays to rip up the line and couldn't remove it fast enough.
I think the Drivers name at 20.22 on the March - Spalding DMU , is Fordham a March Driver.I might be wrong!!I was his Guard and he was my Driver a couple of times between March and Birmingham on loco hauled about 85 or 87 ( before the Sprinters anyway!)If it is him I knew his son Jez in the military who now works for Freightliner last I heard!
Wish we could jump onto a train and go back to the 1980s.I wouldnt return to 2019. As everything receeds further and further from what we know, we all become like the spalding-march line..
Considering what has happened since 2019, I would take 2019 in heartbeat.
Sad video Roy but great all the same 👍🏻
Nice daytime music
Thank You Anne.
Thanks for posting such a wonderful video and to those who produced it. I love the first generation DMU's so much nicer than the souless units we have now. I cannot understand why no Swindon 120's were preserved!
Swindon 120's had asbestos insulation, as did Park Royal 103's, Cravens 105's and
Gloucester 100's and 119's. To remove it required virtually a total rebuild, so it was
easier to scrap them. This is why so few of these units survive today (and no 120's).
At least we still have the Swindon 126 which looks similar to a 120 (at one end).
I think most of these were Cravens units which had a similar front end.
@@jakefield7702 Most of them were Cravens units. The class 120's would have been on services from the Midlands as they were based at Derby Etches Park at the time, some also at Chester
Jake Field no the windscreens were much larger, and much neater, on the Cravens compared to the Swondon designed units
@@neildahlgaard-sigsworth3819 Similar in appearance rather than design.
Unbelievable lack of forethought and planning with public money. Now we need good public transport more than ever. We gave railways to the world and now they are rubbished by privatisation and greed. March was an amazing station once.
The UK was a recession in 1982 and traffic levels were falling to such levels that other routes could handle them. Now almost 40 years later we could do with this line, but between closure and today we had a recession in the early 1990s and the credit crunch of 2008 that no one seems to have foreseen even though it has parallels with the Wall Street Crash of 1929.
Postland signal box still exists albeit in terrible condition but complete with lever frame in place. Being single I`d love to live in a signal box.
Another line foolishly closed. Needed more than ever now. Great film of back when rail travel was a pleasure. Quite amusing that the Driver is making out his ticket to save time when booking off!
General Motors can you tell me the winning lottery numbers in 2050, just after I'm due to retire? No, I thought not. This line was a victim of the economic recession this country was facing in the early 1980s. Between the closure of this line with had a couple of other recessions plus the 2008 final collapse, plus the uncertainty over Brexit, which has claimed 2 big scalps in British Steel and Thomas Cook. Who knows what's going to happen next year, let alone the next decade or quarter century.
Neil Dahlgaard-Sigsworth you are right Neil, very well said.
@@neildahlgaard-sigsworth3819 Yeah it's so easy to blame everything on Brexit. Just what they are trying to gaslight us with now with the fuel shortages.
Thanks for posting this, most interesting.
Were the DMUs shown on scheduled passenger workings, as I thought the GN & GE line was freight only in it's last years?
Wonderful footage of this much-missed line. Did you manage to capture any freight trains, Summer Saturday or Tulip specials too?
There was a diamond crossing at Murrow (remnant of the M&GNJ?) Last used to access some brick works. I think it must have been taken out in the 70's
Interesting!
Nice bit of weaving around those gates at 2:50! Very extravagant in infrastructure though; all those manned signalboxes and level crossings for a two car DMU every hour or so, I suppose.
Sounds like French Drove was regularly strafed bypassing low flying jets!
Actually a two car DMU three times a day running virtually empty. Useless for passenger traffic - it was always mainly a freight line - but would be great now for container trains from Felixstowe.
I think that I travelled this line in 1967 on a football excursion train from Ipswich to Manchester.
Yes David, that would have traveled this line.
Great to watch ! Seemed to me at least quite an important connection between Norfolk and the north; can't get why BR scratched it.....
Back in the days when you could convince the DMU driver to let you ride in the cab. I did it a few times on the Lincoln - Peterborough route via Spalding.
Historic stuff, though it's a shock to be reminded of the limitations of VHS video on both picture quality and sound compared to some of today's amazing productions. At the time it was logical to close it to passengers and divert them over the link to Peterborough (itself then under threat) but it was criminal to let the trackbed be severed (literally, as Whitemoor prison was built on part of it). It would be invaluable now for container traffic from Felixstowe and would have avoided the current costly investment round Peterborough. I remember cine filming Class 40s and 45s on Spalding Flower Parade day.
Agree with you Ian, Biggest mistake they ever made.
I can remember the BR area manager appearing on tv, with a train driver in support, defending BRs decision to close the line. Line could have should have been mothballed. In those days when BR closed a line, they dismantled it in great haste. I believe some BR management thought their primary function was closing railways.
And now we need this and many other lines back to take the pressure off the roads.
Love to do it now from Gedney Hill to Cambridge and be in London within 2 1/2 hrs
Really great footage. Do you have anything at Stamford in BR days please?
No sorry Robert, mostly Spalding & Peterborough.
Fascinating film. Thank you for sharing this. What was the frequency of the local passenger service, in these final days?
Only 3 Trains each way,
@@royharrison4122 A couple of summer Saturday loco hauled services (Newcastle and Leeds to Yarmouth, I recall) also used the line right up to the end of the Summer 1982 timetable. The Leeds-Yarmouth also used the Lincoln avoiding line, which closed shortly after Spalding-March in 1983 and far less of its alignment remains in place. There must have been at least a bit of freight left as well, and the tulip specials of course (shown on another of your videos).
At the end of its life this was a ghost line passing closed stations and making no revenue for BR who said go the long way round
what camera did you use? my dad used a videostar in the 80s. Sadly mine kinda of trains are rollercoaster trains but I dont mine watching them with him
My first Video Camera was a JVC on VHS-C then later I upgraded to a Sony Video 8.
@@royharrison4122 I didnt think vhs c was around that early! I actually although it doesnt work still have my dads ferguson videostar it originally had a lead and camera going to the video recorder. I was born 1988 he upgraded then to a minotla video8. My Dad was impressed by your filming him and his late freind during the 80s went to Turkey,Germany,France,Spain,Portugal,India twice Pakistan,Poland China and the Philippines filming steam trains. I asked why he did film anything of England said the tapes were expensive back then.
Great video of a line pasted into the mists of time.
Interesting to see what looks like 31418 at 18:00 - now that's a diesel that's had a hard life! Oddly, considering 99% of the class 31's have been scrapped, 31418 is still around - a1alocomotives.co.uk/31418-summary/
Cravens 105s. Those bloody things; couldn't hear them when they were coasting. Around the same time of this video I used to stay at a gatekeepers cottage along the East Suffolk Line between Beccles & Oulton Broad South; you heard everything coming from OBS as they were still accelerating away - class 37 anyone? - but when they were from Beccles they were coasting. Classes 31/37/47's - the track would "sing" up to 1.5 miles away when they were approaching but the 105/101 DMUs - they were too light to make the track hum. So; if you were in your early teens and were picking apples from the trees scattered along the line the first you knew about those was the dada-deda sound of the units; and by then they were almost on top of you! Ended head first in a few ditches quite a few times I can tell you... 10:50 reminded me of that big time - thanks :)
Thanks for your interesting comment Jon.
Its a shame it misses out footage of the Burr Lane crossing each way. I know a person who used to live in the gatekeepers cottage.
Absurdly, the station and signal box at cowbit still exist, the station is someone's private house, not bad when you consider all of the land and the line belonged to the public.
THE MARCH TO SPALDING LINE WAS REPLACED BY THE REOPENED PETERBOROUGH - SPALDING LINE, BUT MARCH TO SPALDING IS PLANNED TO BE REOPENED, SO THE POOR GUYS GARDEN AT COWBIT WILL RETURN TO PUBLIC OWNERSHIP AND HE MAY HAVE TO GO ELSEWHERE; JUST LIKE THE POOR GUY OWNER OF THE BREE LOUISSE < ONE OF THE UK'DS BEST AND MOST SUCCESSFULL REAL ALES BUBS > JUST WEST OF EUSTON TERMINUS STATION LONDON.
@@peterbuckley265 Nurse!! There's about as much chance of Spalding to March being reopened as there is of Theresa May winning Strictly Come Dancing.
(1) There's a stonking great prison built across the trackbed at Whitemoor and it has been built on extensively at the Spalding end as well, and slightly in Cowbit.
(2) The line and all its infrastructure was literally sinking into the fens. Any new track would need massive expenditure on drainage and foundations.
(3) All the many level crossings would have to be bridged at great cost, across land which is totally flat. Numerous rail bridges have been demolished and would have to be put back in.
(4) There is little to no passenger justification for the line as it passes basically from nowhere to nowhere via nowhere. Now that the Werrington flyover is being built there's not much freight justification either. Spalding to March is no use for freight that needs to head from East Anglia towards the midlands (as opposed to up the ECML).
Sad but them's the facts.
Another great video from Roy - many thanks.
@@kevinfowkes2327 WELL FIRSTLY IF BILLIONS WAS NOT WASTED ON THE NOT NEEDED HS2 WHITE ELEPHANT, THEN SOME COULD BE USED [TO REDEVELOP THE FENS WITH REOPENED RAILWAYS, NEW INDUSTRY AND HOUSING TO HOUSE THOSE TO WORK THERE, THOSE WITH NO HOMES AND THOSE FROM THE OVER BULGING CITIES !!! AND LOTS FOR UPDATING ALL OTHER RAILWAYS, THE NHS, POLICE, SOCIAL HOUSING, SOCIAL CARE AND ALL NECESSARY PROJECTS TO BENEFIT ALL AND NOT JUST THE PRILEDGED FAT CATS. OF ALL WESTERN EURPEAN COUNTRIES THE UK IS THE MOST CORRUPT, WITH THE BIGGEST GAP TWIXT RICH AND POOR, WITH THE LARGEST INEQUALITY, WITH THE LOWEST BENEFITS, PENSIONS AND WAGES, WITHOUT FULL SOCIAL HOUSING, ALL UNLIKE THE OPPOSITE IN WESTERNERN EUROPE. THE UK IS THE ONLY COUNTRY IN WESTERN EUROPE WITH RAILWAYS NOT NATIONA LIZED AND UNLAWFULLY RUN FOR FAT CAT GREEDY RICH SHAREHOLDERS, IN THE UK PEOPLE SARTE SUFFERING UNDER HALF THE CORRECT LEVEL EWAGES TIO COVRER INFLATIONARY HIGH PRICE RISES IN 45 YEARS. W AGES HAVE ONLY RISEN 5- 6 TIMES IN THE UK SINCE 1974, WHEREAS PRICES HAVE RISEN 5 TO 15 TIMES THE BASIC WAGE NEEDS TO BE £900 A WEEK MINIMUM FOR ALL AND CAPPED AT £3,000 A WEEK FOR ALL WITH NO BUTS OR EXCEPTIONS !!!!.
dover one foxtrot there's also a bracketed signal post between Cowbit and Spalding visible from the A16.
dover one foxtrot and before 1948 it belong to the shareholders of the LNER and its predecessors.
9.39 I wish we could hear the story
Looks like Guyhirn @ 16.23!
Yes it is Sam
is there any talk reopening the line
Sorry Andrew, No chance of that now.
Yet another section which could still be in use now, even if singled as bi-directional working.
Lost forever proberly, such is the march of progress, no less😒
Another line that needs reinstating especially for freight traffic
No wonder this line closed. These are slowest trains I've even seen
But it a slow train from Spaldng to March made the journey from Sleaford to Cambridge much quicker than going all the way round via Peterborough!
I used to hate ridding on those buses on rails, cold, noisy, slow, smelly, every part used to rattle.
that's a great shame to see that line from Spalding to march no longer there any more roy
What was the reason for closure?
This was long after the Beeching Axe.
The Tory Government
Roy Harrison ... Seems to be the same reason for many of the bad things in life.
Economy cuts.
@@royharrison4122 I love your videos but (no disrespect) that's a silly, simplistic answer to a complicated question. If the hated Thatcher truly wanted to use her landslide majorities to burn the railway system to the ground how come not much more than a few meagre branch lines closed in the 80s? And why did her government refuse BR's applications to close much more important lines like Settle-Carlisle and Henley-Stratford? And why did they fund a massive programme to replace all the first generation DMUs? And electrify the ECML and Anglia main lines? And actually reopen a fair few lines and stations. And approve the building of a rail-only Channel Tunnel (which Harold Wilson had cancelled). None of us have a crystal ball and it would have been hard to see much of a realistic future for this line in 1982. It was silly to build over it though.
Since my young son picked up my interest in railways and I've taken him around a few places, looking at things through his eyes has given me more insights into why rail enthusiasm has become such a dying and ridiculed hobby....I'm convinced that a big part of it is people constantly moaning about how much better things used to be which hardly encourages the young to take any interest in the contemporary scene (I think Simon Jenkins and Ian Jack have both made a similar point). I'm the generation below you (43) and I fully expect the hobby to die out in my lifetime, unless we can stop being so backward looking.
Florence Gomer the recession of the early 1980s caused the closure of many lines that were lingering on.
How stupid were BR when they closed this very useful line? On a scale of 1-10; about zero!
I agree.
Me to. I would like this line to be reopened one day again, as it would be a useful route for the Freightliner trains to use so they do not have to go via Peterborough to reach the Spalding line as they do now. It may also be a good idea to reopen the stations as well for the local people to use.
Instead of closing the route throughout, why did they not keep a single line with passing loops at the signal boxes, which would have been much better than a complete closure. The East Suffolk Line was double track when this line closed, but that was partially singled and remained open throughout! Why was this line not singled like that, and converted to RETB working or tokenless block working to enable it to keep open?
People who want to renationalise the railways should watch this video because society seems to have forgotten just what utter canutes BR were. Thank God they never got their way with the Settle & Carlisle.
David Lyas If I could go back in time I’d simply like to annihilate Beeching and Marples. They were the ones that trashed the railways of this country 50-60 year ago! If we still had every line open from the Victorian era now and fully modernised we would so be at the top of the tree 🌲!
The main reason BR was split up and privatised was due to far too much union interference. Strikes caused chaos on a massive scale especially in London and the south. Totally unacceptable!
Nigel K Thomas and have no railway to use. You've forgotten what state the country was in by the early 1960s. Economic mismanagement by the Tories in the 1950s led to a run on the Pound in the mid-1960s after Labour came into power that resulted in the Pound being devalued from £1 to US$2.80 to £1 to US$2.40, a devaluation of 14%.
I have the DORLING KINDERSLEY DK EYEWITNESS GUIDES Book of TRAIN.
Discover the story of railways - from the days of steam to the high - speed, sophisticated trains of today.
In association with THE NATIONAL RAILWAY MUSEUM.