Military Railways and BR traffic to RAF/MoD bases

[Kelly]

I'm looking for information on how equipment, spares, supplies and weapons would of been transported to RAF/MoD bases during WW2 and the cold war period.

 

My thinking is to try to research to plan a small layout featuring this aspect and some kind of RAF base (not an entire one, but as part of a aspect).

 

I can research from books I have on aviation/aviation history which squadrons and which planes would of been at which bases, but I don't know where to start with regards whether items would of been sent by a) road B) Military Railways c) BR or d) flown in by RAF Transport Command (or later Support Command) or a combination of all 4?

 

Or would it of been a case of a depot near to a given base and then transported by road (or maybe industrial/narrow guage) to the particular base?

 

Any pointers and help welcome.

 

Kelly

[petethemole]

During WW2 the majority of RAF and USAAF bases were temporary, built during the war wherever there was a big enough area of flattish land. Transport was road-orientated, with local road widening carried out if required. Bombs were transported by train to depots around the country that served all the airfields in a given area. The US I believe had a separate chain of depots from the RAF. Aviation spirit was distributed on a similar basis, in grey-painted tank wagons, then trucked to the airfields in tanker lorries. Other supplies such as rations, aircraft parts, tools etc would probably have been transported by the most convenient method, so the local railway station may have dealt with some stores. Anything needed in a hurry would almost certainly go by road.

 

Some of the RAF permanent stations, dating back to WW1 or the 20s and 30s, did have rail access and no doubt received stores by rail. Henlow springs to mind.

 

Pete

[PhilJ W]

In East Anglia (Bomber country) there were several instances of extra sidings being put in for the transfer of bombs from rail to road. Usually just a simple single loop siding connected at both ends to the line it was on with a concrete hard standing. The bombs would be transfered from the wagons straight onto the trucks. The Americans used their standard two and a half ton 6X6 trucks and the British a variety of trucks but principally one of the many 3 ton types.

[TheSignalEngineer]

Not quite delivering bombs etc, but I remember there being a siding at Castle Bromwich Station that went onto the airfield site. I think it served the Spitfire factory. It was still there up to the building of the Castle Vale estate, but I don't think it had been used for a good while before that. The site of it is still used a track access point in Cadbury Drive.

I have a couple of books put out by the government at the end of the war. One says that a 1000-bomber raid needed 650 rail tanks of fuel. It also has pictures of bombs being transported in open wagons.

[Fenway Park]

Hi,

 

I am sure this has been discussed before on the forum. The Lambourn branch was used by USAF to transport munitions to Welford Park.

 

RAF Caerwent near Caldicot was a weapons store for USAF with its own dedicated branch line from the Severn Tunnel Junction to Gloucester main line. Last used for asbestos removal and scrapping of BR coaches. Possibly now out of use.

 

I can remember during the first Iraq war, the legimate one when Saddam invaded Kuwait, seeing trains of wagons leaving the depot behind an 08.

 

Also in the Forest of Dean where I live, there was an American ammunition store on the Mineral Loop. The shells etc were taken to Sharpness Docks pre D day.

 

RAF Leuchars used to have a line from the Edinburgh to Dundee main line for fuel deliveries. I am also sure there was a branch to RAF Cranwell in Lincolnshire as well.

[LSWR]

I can think of a number of locations where an MoD establishment was rail served until fairly recently. Munitions depots at Bramley, between Basingstoke and Reading; Dean, between Salisbury and Romsey; Chilmark, west of Salisbury near Dinton. Older sites include Worthy Down on the Didcot, Newbury and Southampton line. The surviving stub of the Midland and South Western Junction Railway between Andover and Ludgershall is now a "Military Siding".

 

Somewhere in the U.K. there was a WWII airfield where the branch line itself crossed the runway or taxiway on the level.

[Jon_Eng]

I can think of a number of locations where an MoD establishment was rail served until fairly recently. Munitions depots at Bramley, between Basingstoke and Reading; Dean, between Salisbury and Romsey; Chilmark, west of Salisbury near Dinton. Older sites include Worthy Down on the Didcot, Newbury and Southampton line. The surviving stub of the Midland and South Western Junction Railway between Andover and Ludgershall is now a "Military Siding".

 

Somewhere in the U.K. there was a WWII airfield where the branch line itself crossed the runway or taxiway on the level.

 

Is that the one near Filton for Bristol Airport that is still in use IIRC?

[pH]

Somewhere in the U.K. there was a WWII airfield where the branch line itself crossed the runway or taxiway on the level.

The Belfast-Londonderry railway crossed one of the main runways at the Coastal Command airfield at Ballykelly in Northern Ireland. The runway had been extended to handle fully-loaded Liberators.There's a picture of a Liberator on the runway with a steam-hauled passenger train crossing on this site (trains had precedence).

[Pete Piszczek]

Some RAF bases, RAF Alconbury comes to mind, had sidings for tank wagons. This was a USAF facility during WWII and the cold war. The fuel was off-loaded near the base, then piped the last 1000' or so to the on-base storage tanks.

 

If you follow the link below, you'll see the remains of the RAF Alconbury yard alongside Clay Lane. The pipe to the base followed Clay Lane on the north side of the road.

 

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=alconbury&ie=UTF8&hl=en&hq=&hnear=Alconbury,+Huntingdon,+Cambridgeshire,+United+Kingdom&ll=52.387597,-0.206981&spn=0.010922,0.027874&t=h&z=16

 

Here in the US, many USAF bases had their own locomotives and yards for moving the aircraft fuel in tank cars onto the base. Some of these USAF rail lines were quite long, the one at Mountain Home Air Force base in Idaho was on the order of ten miles to get to the nearest railroad.

[Fat Controller]

RAF St Athan (between Barry and Bridgend on the VoG line) retained a rail connection into the late 1960s, and possibly beyond- this, in later days, was used to serve the boiler-house that heated the large hangars where aircraft were modified.

RAF Manston had been rail-served during WW1, but lost the connection by WW2.

The RN had lots of rail-served depots, quite often some distance from ports. The one at Llangennech retained an active rail connection into the early 1970s, served by a spur off the line from Llandeilo Junction to the Central Wales line. The connection into the depot crossed the main Llanelli- Pontardulais road on a level crossing, which I think had 'boom' type gates. Traffic was either in containers (carried more usually in 5-plank opens rather than on Conflats) or in large, heavily-stencilled, packing cases carried in Opens, Pipes and Tubes.

The RAF had a large depot at Chilmark, on the Salisbury- Exeter route, which retained a rail connection until quite recently- it used an extensive narrow-gauge network within the site. There was another depot, either RAF or RN, at Dean, between Salisbury and Romsey, which was active until relatively recently- this was sheilded from the main-line by an earth bund.

The RN depot at Ernesttle, near Plymouth, still uses rail, I believe, and would make an interesting model. As well as the standard-gauge lines, there was a narrow gauge network. This served both the storage bunkers (which look like something from the 'Shire' in aerial views, and a jetty serving the lighters which took stores to and from warships moored in the Tamar estuary. This still exists, but now uses road transport.

Most wartime fuel and ordanance depots seemed to be some distance from the bases they served, with the fuel connections being by pipeline. A lot of the fuel depots survived the war, and became either government-operated strategic stores (West Moors, Dorset) or commercial oil depots (Flax Bourton, between Bristol and Weston)

[The Stationmaster]

Dean was an RN depot - mainly for ordnance I believe but as it was very extensive it perhaps handled other stores as well?

On a more general point the usual method of rail transport for inert bombs was to load them in sheeted open wagons; detonators/fuses were presumably conveyed in vans but I'm not sure if they were allowed on the same trains as inert bombs - I've an idea in the back of my head that there was at one time a limit of the tonnage of inert explosive allowed to be conveyed on the same train as detonators. Incidentally I don't know if it was common practice but the GWR prohibited the handling of explosives in goods sheds - and in any case many bombs would require cranage.

[Fat Controller]

Dean was an RN depot - mainly for ordnance I believe but as it was very extensive it perhaps handled other stores as well?

On a more general point the usual method of rail transport for inert bombs was to load them in sheeted open wagons; detonators/fuses were presumably conveyed in vans but I'm not sure if they were allowed on the same trains as inert bombs - I've an idea in the back of my head that there was at one time a limit of the tonnage of inert explosive allowed to be conveyed on the same train as detonators. Incidentally I don't know if it was common practice but the GWR prohibited the handling of explosives in goods sheds - and in any case many bombs would require cranage.

There were some photos of Dean published on this, or another site, fairly recently- they came from a sales brochure, I believe.

The photos of shell/bomb-carrying trains I've seen (I think it was on the Lambourn branch) were formed 2x Vanfit, 5x High, 2x Vanfit, 5x High.....The Vanfits were presumably barriers.

There were a number of mobile cranes built specifically to handle WD traffic at sites that didn't have sufficient fixed cranage. They were to an LMS design, but seemed to be 'Common-User'. There has been a drawing published in Model Railway Constructor, and a photo of one in BR days on Paul Bartlett's site. Their contribution to the war effort was acknowledged by the presence of three of them in the victory parade in London.

[The Stationmaster]

 

 

 

The photos of shell/bomb-carrying trains I've seen (I think it was on the Lambourn branch) were formed 2x Vanfit, 5x High, 2x Vanfit, 5x High.....The Vanfits were presumably barriers.

 

 

That was the usual formation for such traffic - when the French ejected US forces back in the late 1960s in a fit of nationalism or anti-NATOism or whatever it was a large percentage of US HE and napalm bombs that had been in dumps in France were sent to Welford via Tilbury Docks and then by rail, the branch probably hadn't been so busy in years and all worked by D63Xx diesel-hydraulics of course Interestingly as far as can be seen on Google the traffic to & from Welford must have been transferred to road vehicles for the last few hundred yards - possibly a useful idea for the OP?

[Kelly]

Thanks for all of your replies, been most interesting. Have been discussing doing a joint military/Southern layout with Natalie, so something might happen there.

 

Not sure if I'll work planes into it, but who knows?

 

kelly

[John B]

Marchwood Military Port has it's own extensive system of sidings & sheds - serving the Royal Logistics Corps main port on the South Coast. Served by BR off the Totton to Fawley branch, and substantially visible from the lineside in the village of Marchwood, and from Google Earth overhead shots.

 

When I lived thereabouts in the 90s, they had some ex-EMU carriages in use as staff site transportation, some 0-4-0 diesel shunters in operation, and regular (at least weekly) freight services in and outbound, including tanks / APCs on Warflats & Warwells, as well as more regular air-braked stock - usually hauled by a 47. The annual port "open day" often brought a preserved steam loco in - I saw 76079 there one year, and (IIRC) an Austerity another year. One year, the class 47 "Marchwood Milatary Port" was named in ceremony at the open day.

[shortliner]

RAF Calshot had its own NG railway. Raf Cranwell did have a railway running to what was then an airship base to the north of the road that runs through the middle of the camp - the road that runs across what are now playing fields, and a glider launching strip, to the Officers Mess, is called Lighter-than-air Road The airship mooring was on the right side as yiu go north, where the glider strip is now.Many Army sites and Naval sites had rail access. Raf Finningley ( now Robin Hood Airport ) has a railway running east - west right at the end of the runway, but AFAIK never had rail access The Longmoor Military Railway is one of the better known ones

[SouthernRegionSteam]

RAF Calshot had its own NG railway.

 

If you need any information on RAF Calshot, let me know Kelly and I might be able to help!

You can also check out my layout blog too.

 

Jam

[Rivercider]

If you are looking towards the Southern then Wrafton station on the Ilfracombe line was sandwiched between

the village of Wrafton and RAF Chivenor. There were 2 sidings in the yard, one of which was occasionally

used by the RAF, but I don't know what the traffic was. The sidings were taken out of use in 1965.

During WWII the station was very busy with military personnel.

 

cheers

[The Stationmaster]

Bramley was quite an interesting site. The rail network used lots of Wickham trolleys for personnel transport between the widely dispersed buildings and some of the 'curves' were on a par with model railway standards. There was also a loco shed next to the BR line near teh exchange sidings with locos available for heavier work including transfer of vans containing small arms ammo and related stores. By the 1960s I don't think there was any heavy calibre stuff on the base apart from (allegedly large) quantities of WWI artillery ammunition, including gas shells it was rumoured, buried in various places in the woods and the depot's main work/storage was concentrated on small arms stuff and explosives training.

[Bon Accord]

Marchwood Military Port has it's own extensive system of sidings & sheds - serving the Royal Logistics Corps main port on the South Coast. Served by BR off the Totton to Fawley branch, and substantially visible from the lineside in the village of Marchwood, and from Google Earth overhead shots.

 

When I lived thereabouts in the 90s, they had some ex-EMU carriages in use as staff site transportation, some 0-4-0 diesel shunters in operation, and regular (at least weekly) freight services in and outbound, including tanks / APCs on Warflats & Warwells, as well as more regular air-braked stock - usually hauled by a 47. The annual port "open day" often brought a preserved steam loco in - I saw 76079 there one year, and (IIRC) an Austerity another year. One year, the class 47 "Marchwood Milatary Port" was named in ceremony at the open day.

 

They still utiilise 0-4-0 shunters, and the daily 'passenger' trains still run from the main gate down to the Port Ops building by the waterside. The EMU's are gone, and they now use 2 former Gatwick Express Air-Con Mk II's.

[Oldddudders]

Bramley was quite an interesting site. The rail network used lots of Wickham trolleys for personnel transport between the widely dispersed buildings and some of the 'curves' were on a par with model railway standards. There was also a loco shed next to the BR line near teh exchange sidings with locos available for heavier work including transfer of vans containing small arms ammo and related stores. By the 1960s I don't think there was any heavy calibre stuff on the base apart from (allegedly large) quantities of WWI artillery ammunition, including gas shells it was rumoured, buried in various places in the woods and the depot's main work/storage was concentrated on small arms stuff and explosives training.

Because I never really worked on the SW Division, I had no direct contact with Bramley. However, there were regularly lists of wagons that had gone AWOL, under the heading "Away in Error" and I recall Bramley featured in this list on at least one occasion, with 2 or 3 vans being taken against the intentions of the military. One can only imagine the reactions of those who opened a van's doors to see what was inside - and found lots of things designed to go bang!

[ullypug]

I can think of a number of locations where an MoD establishment was rail served until fairly recently. Munitions depots at Bramley, between Basingstoke and Reading; Dean, between Salisbury and Romsey; Chilmark, west of Salisbury near Dinton. Older sites include Worthy Down on the Didcot, Newbury and Southampton line. The surviving stub of the Midland and South Western Junction Railway between Andover and Ludgershall is now a "Military Siding".

 

Somewhere in the U.K. there was a WWII airfield where the branch line itself crossed the runway or taxiway on the level.

 

The Oxford - Fairford branch crossed the southern part of RAF Brize Norton. You can still see the trackbed on Google. Brize was host to the USAF from the late 50s to early 70's.

 

Bicester also has a very extensive private network.

[DavidBird]

Chilwell COD (Central Ordnance Depot) was rail connected until mid 80s, with quite an extensive network

See couple of photos about 2/3rds way down this page.

 

.... Raf Finningley ( now Robin Hood Airport ) has a railway running east - west right at the end of the runway, but AFAIK never had rail access...

Apart from temporary platforms for a shuttle service from Doncaster for the Air Show days (Four Vulcans taking off in a demo of QRA )

[Natalie]

i'm answering on behalf of Kelly. Firsty thanks for all the helpful and informative replies- Kel is really impressed with the helpfulness and knowledge in the forum.

 

Obvioulsy modelling a military installation is a thing of size so my concept of 'suggesting its prescence' its going to likley be the way forward. Initial thoughts are for some exchange sidings and the main line with the branch/access line into the main facility. Location wise Portsmouth/ Hampshire is a front runner as it fits in with my stock/ plans. The focus would be on the working of the trains serving the location- which would depend on the geographical location to some extent.

 

I have suitable signalling plans that can be used to inspire and it would probably be rude not to deploy a Southern ARP box (a la Dean Hill- itself a location worth considering.) I'm keen to have third rail on the main which would rule out a Salisbury Plain location but there is also the possiblity of a location from Kelly's roots inspired by places like Plumstead. It's so difficult to choose!! The means to backdate the layout from mid 1980s to WW2 is an important requirement. There are no plans for a station (I could maybe be persuaded to have a short halt for workers made of Exmouth Junction products but we shall see!)

 

It's early days yet but the seeds have been sown.

[Richard E]

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned Ruddington which was an Ordnance Depot, not a vast area and with very tight curves as already mentioned by another poster but referring to a different site. Rail connected even today as the GC Northern extension uses new track laid within the depot as its main location.