Modern Day Navy / RAF (MOD) trains

[TangerineWizards]

I'm trying to find out what (if any) modern day trains run with supplies for the Navy or RAF.

 

I know GBRf currently have the MOD contract and seem to move a lot of vehicles for the army but its harder to identify if any of the workings serve Naval or RAF locations.

 

I've found records of DM Glen Douglas (along with a modern and quite small model suitable exchange siding) still receiving trains that appear to serve the naval pontoon in Loch Long. 

 

I think DRS take the KXA nuclear flasks to Plymouth for the subs along with previous trips to Rosyth.

 

Anywhere else? Any pictures would be appreciated.

 

 

[lather]

Since RAF Chilmark shut in the 1990s, pretty much all of the RAF's munitions have been stored at either DM Glen Douglas or DM Kineton. Apart from those two locations, I don't think there's anywhere rail-connected left still serving the RAF.

[daveyb]

The supply chain has been tri-service for some time. Defence Munitions is the overarching organization that manages all ammunition and explosives storage and owns the central storage facilities at Glen Douglas, Kineton, Longtown and a few others. 

 

All materiel is procured by project teams and capability management teams in Defence Equipment & Support HQ in Abbey Wood (Bristol). They receive stores at Bicester, Donnington (Telford) and distribution is run through another office at Abbey Wood where the Defence Movement Agency plans the must effective method to move the commodity. They have made increasingly more use of containers, but still decided the MoD container management system at Bicester was surplus.

 

Contractors are increasingly used to deliver complete services including supply, so will bypass the DE&S, DM, DMA, etc.

 

Fewer storage facilities are rail served, fewer bases are rail served and as the Forces contract further, so will the need for bulk movement. 

 

All the ammo depots remain rail linked, but Donnington lost (but recently regained) it's link in the early 90s and Bicester has recently been reduced to a mere transfer siding.  I assume there is still a link to Devonport, but I think Pompey has lost its link and so has the little bit remaining at Gosport. I'd imagine the RAF stations remaining that had rail links will have had them disconnected as they mostly stopped using rail in the 90s...

 

All that said, if for some reason rail is cheapest, it will get used!

[pb_devon]

MoD traffic and Devonport Royal Dockyard (Plymouth). The rail connection from the main-line at Keyham West GF is still in use. This connects to a branch into the Dockyard and to the nuclear submarine refitting docks. Traffic is related to the refuelling and defuelling of the reactors, where active waste is safely removed by rail to storage at Sellafield. There are no weapons involved. Movements are infrequent and always by DRS. Less infrequent are route knowledge/training runs.

 

Defence Muntions Ernesettle (Plymouth). A storage facility next to the river Tamar has a rail connection off the Gunnislake branch. The site is in use though the rail link could be described as mothballed, though can be bought into use if required.

 

Details of both sites above in the books: ’Devonport Dockyard Railway’; and ’Plymouth’s Hidden Railways’; both pub Twelveheads Press.

 

Also, for those not familiar with place name slang, Pompey = Portsmouth.

Edited April 21, 2020 by pb_devon