Sunday, August 23, 2015

The March to Spalding line

© Dave Hitchborne
The most substantial British railway line I have travelled on that has since closed is the Woodhead route from Sheffield to Manchester.

After that comes March to Spalding. When I was a student in York there was a regular service from Doncaster to Cambridge and I once used it to have an afternoon in Ely.

March to Spalding was closed in 1982 and all freight workings were diverted via Peterborough.

It was an expensive line to operate because of all the level crossings in the flat Fenland landscape. The photograph above, taken from Geograph, shows the signal box that controlled one of them being reclaimed by nature.

There is some chatter on the net about reopening it, but I don't know how well founded it is. The line from March to Wisbech looks a more likely candidate.

1 comment:

Richard T said...

The case for opening the line between March and Spalding is that it would carry a great deal of the freight traffic from Harwich and Felixstowe to the North and Midlands thus relieving congestion on the lines from Euston and Kings Cross. Indeed its re-opening would be a better proposition than the Government's plan for a freight corridor to Southampton. Equally as you remark passenger journeys from East Anglia to the North would be made better.