Atlas Stone light railways, Cambridgeshire

[rockershovel]

This is about as “disused” as it gets, but following a conversation with my sister, I’ve spent the afternoon tracing what remains of the Atlas Stone Company light railways around Cambridge.

 

My recollection of these lines, was of a small light railway in the Saxon Cement Works, near Cherry Hinton Brook.

 

From various local history papers and old OS maps, the railway seems to have run for about 3/4 mile, starting in a marl pit East of the existing railway line and the footpath known as “The Tins”, through a tunnel under the main line from Cambridge to Bury and Newmarket; from there, round the complex now used by the Army Reserve, and over a small bridge to the Atlas Stone Company at the corner of Brooks Road and Coldham’s Lane. The abutments of the bridge are still in place, although the rails and supporting beams (which I remember being in place in the late 1960s) are gone. 

 

I also remember seeing the marl pit end of the line, and seeing traffic on it, on at least one occasion which from context, must have been 1966 or 1967. The Atlas Stone Company yard was sold in 1968 and the marl pit and surrounding works, closed and cleared by 1973. 

 

There was a sister line in the villages of Meldreth and Melbourne. This closed in the 1930s, and the line was lifted for scrap during the War, but short sections of embedded track remain in a couple of places. It was a very light, standard gauge line using chaired track.

 

There seem to have been two petrol tractors at Meldreth, one was scrapped in the 1940s but the Simplex was sent to Cambridge, where I saw it in the 1960s and amazingly enough, it survives (albeit in a very poor state) at the East Anglian Railway Museum. I’ve found one photo of operations at Meldreth, showing conventional four or five-plank 4-wheel wagons in use, typical of the sort of drag-line quarrying operations in East Anglia. 

 

I don’t know of any other examples of industrial light railways passing UNDER a main line, in tunnel - and given the depth of the pit, and the dates, it must have been driven in tunnel. 

 

I haven't posted the references for the usual copyright reasons, mostly IRS and OSGB plus a couple of local history publications. 

 

 

 

Edited June 7, 2020 by rockershovel

[rockershovel]

Various references and older OS maps show a separate rope-hauled incline, located a few hundred metres further South at the Norman Cement Works. This seems to have hauled rawmill (excavated material prepared for drying and milling) from the wash mill, located in a worked-out section of the quarry about 40ft deep, to the main Norman plant. 

 

It appears on OS maps until the 1930s, but is missing from post-WW2 maps. The plant was converted to electric power sometime in the early 1950s and I would assume that the rope incline was dispensed with about that time. The only photo I can find of the area, dated 1966 shows the incline formation in use as an access road. 

 

My recollection of the area around that time includes the overland conveyor from the quarries to the works, I have no recollection of the rope incline. The substantial concrete road along the East side of the works must have been used for the washmill traffic, because there were no substantial raw material imports other than chalk from Lime Kiln Hill, which came in by rail, and finished cement left the same way. 

[Nearholmer]

Going under a main line railway wasn’t all that rare, not common, but not mega-rare. Kent had numerous cement works lines crossing under main lines, for instance, and a good example of a low status railway having an even lower status railway cross below it was the Rue & Camber Tramway.

 

If you go just south of the Curragh racecourse in Ireland, there is still (just about) a 3ft Gauge bog railway crossing below both a main-line railway and a motorway. I can’t think of a UK example still in existence with narrow gauge below standard.

 

A tunnel, as in a driven tunnel must have been rare indeed - I will keep thinking - some of the Kent cement works probably qualified. Swanscombe had a deep tunnel, but under a road, and the pits at Gravesend West had lines below the SR branch, and others too.

 

 

Edited June 8, 2020 by Nearholmer