Paul_Exeter
Antediluvian
- Joined
- Jan 9, 2012
- Messages
- 5,856
There may have been some confusion between the Stoke Ferry branch line operated by British Rail as a Light freight-only railway and the Wissington Railway or tramway that served the sugar beet farms and joined the former at Abbey and Dereham station.
The Wissington lines were not built or operated under an act of parliament but were a private railway from the outset and thus would have developed its own set of operating procedures. There are photos of wagons being loaded by hand and one of a potato farm siding so overgrown you can't see the rails for the grass .
Once a train joined the branch line at Abbey junction just to the East of Abbey and Dereham station it was then shunted into reception sidings to be picked up by a BR locomotive and then hauled to the mainline at Denver. This leg of the journey would have been under the Light Railway regulations and strict rules applied to operating procedures include daytime running only..
This is because before the Stoke Ferry line could become a Light Railway in 1931 LNER had to call a public enquiry at Downham Market and then enact legislation. To remove crossing gates and keepers would create a real risk of collision with road traffic and thus the legislation required that measures were put in place to mitigate this, including daytime running only.
I will dig out links and images in due course. My understanding is that the after dark/nighttime running of any trains on the Stoke Ferry BR branch was forbidden by the Light Railway legislation full stop. However, what happened on the Wissington branch to the farms and factories was a different matter, although I will have to research further the legal status of the line in the 1950s as opposed to when it was built
Last edited: