Tuesday, October 04, 2016

Craven Arms to Bishop's Castle 2



This is the second of two parts of a video looking at the remains of the Bishop's Castle Railway - part 1 is here.

This time the intermediate stations feature strongly, which will interest readers of Malcolm Saville's Lone Pine books .

In Wings Over Witchend the Morton twins find the villains' stash of stolen Christmas trees in the disused Plowden station:
When they were nearer they saw that where the rails has once been laid in a single track was now a grassy lane, and here again the snow had been churned into mud by the wheels of cars. The old platform had nearly crumbled away. 
The windows of the tiny waiting room and booking office had been without glass for years, and as they stepped across the threshold they realized that they had fitted together another part of the puzzle. The old booking office was packed from floor to ceiling with Christmas trees. 
"You were right, Dickie. We've done it again. We've found out things the others can't."
Trouble is, the villains then come back...

Incidentally, in the days when I went for walks in this part of Shropshire with the Malcolm Saville Society, there was a well supported theory that the station at Horderley fitted the geography of the book better than the one at Plowden.

Could the great man have nodded?

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