Rail served airbases in WW2

[pH]

I don’t know if it was “rail served”, but Ballykelly in Northern Ireland had a very close association with a railway!
 

https://www.reddit.com/r/northernireland/comments/n8jj8n/trains_transversing_across_raf_ballykellys_runway/

 

One of my uncles flew out of there on Coastal Command Liberators.

 

[TheEngineShed]

On 04/04/2022 at 14:47, stewartingram said:

Alconbury (north of Huntingdon) had a short branch, through the fence of Abbots Ripton goods yard on the ECML. Track was still there when Grandad took me trainspotting in the late '50s.

The siding at Alconbury, tank wagons were off loaded there to a pipeline that ran down Clay Lane to the airfield.

 

 

[Rivercider]

A shadow aircraft factory was constructed at the south end of Weston-super-Mare aerodrome/airfield (it had been a commercial airport before the war), and there were sidings into the factory connected off the Bristol and Exeter main line. The factory assembled over 3000 Bristol aircraft during the war.

 

cheers 

Edited April 6, 2022 by Rivercider
tidying up.

[MyRule1]

12 hours ago, adanapress said:

Earls Colne was most certainly a fuel supply depot, and as a memorial there is a mounted and stuffed tanker there on display

The fuel farm was actually at Chappel and Wakes Colne, which is now the East Anglian Railway Museum, the tank wagon is no longer at the front of the building as it has been replaced by a steam loco'. 

 

12 hours ago, adanapress said:

The larger sheds had track inside.  I know cos I did a course there.

 

My source for the larger sheds at Great Yeldam are the records of the the Whitlock Company, who bought and owned the sheds up to the closure of their factory as quoted by Adrian Corder-Birch in his recent book on Whitlocks. After Whitlocks closed the main users of the sheds were the Hunnable family who were the importers of Volvo commercial vehicles who stayed there until 1985. It's final use was in the early 2000's as the site of the Yeldham Transport museum, who did lay rails in one of the hangers.

 

12 hours ago, adanapress said:

Great Yeldham info ex the late Dick Ruggles  post war the village head man

 

As a final correction, Dick Ruggles lived all his life in Toppesfield, a village about 4 miles from Yeldham, he did work for Whitlocks for a short time r until he was called up in 1941 (approx), but most of his career was as a gamekeeper, and inn keeper in Toppesfield, It was that village in which he served on both the Parish and Church councils. 

 

I am only following these points up as I am currently, with a team of others, writing a new history of the Colne Valley Railway and am always interested in new information about the line, where backed up with more than anecdotal information.

[adanapress]

And I think Farnborough Aerodrome  via the streets!!

[adanapress]

As MyRule1 rightly says, the fuel depot was Chappel & Wakes Colne, not Earls, my mistake.  But

the Americans had the original much lower wooden shed set up at the rear of the vast hangar used

by Whitlocks, and later the preserved bus folk. and also in that vast hangar more recently the new Lynton & Barnstaple stock was constructed on chassis from the Ffestionog R. .  Those wooden sheds not only added bits to make the bombs more finished  (tho not finally fuzed)  in there and some engine overhaul work was also done there.  These wooden sheds which  were used about 40 years ago by  that dreadful trade 'direct mail', outlasted the big sheds and were only demolished by the present developer quite recently.  (I have used the wartime loos in there! ) There was a remnant of the WW2 situation 50 years ago, in that the then entrance to the sheds area had a vastly overweight security/ entry  guard  who was  ex the US armed forces.   I may perhaps also add that  that both times he was torpedoed Dick R. got long home leave.,  very rightly so. 

[RANGERS]

Its to be expected that most airfields were served by rail, the sheer scale of the consumption of arms, fuel, spares and food in an era when road fuel was in short supply was such that the supply chains would have been reliant on rail to a large degree. I think what you're asking is which had direct access, which would be any that were close to sidings or goods stations where the wagons could be offloaded.

 

As they were usually fairly remote locations, I'd guess the majority were reliant on motor transport for the final mile deliveries. Locally we'd half a dozen bases within ten miles or so, only two were within sight of a railway, the remainder a few miles away but all had established logistical lines to the nearest station, mostly by road though one had a pipeline for fuel.

[dibber25]

On 04/04/2022 at 20:07, KeithMacdonald said:

Carterton (RAF Brize Norton) has been mentioned here

 

 

And here

http://www.fairfordbranch.co.uk/History.htm

 

And here's one that tried to park too close to the station.

 

Featured in the article on the Fairford branch in the March 2022 Steam World. (CJL)

[IWCR]

RAF Halton was served by a branch from Wendover station.

Closed & lifted early 60's.

 

Pete

[MikeB]

Peter Paye's book on the Waveney Valley Railway (GER, Beccles- Tivetshall) describes operations in WW1 and WW2 on this country branch line. Pulham airfield was served by a one-mile branch constructed in 1915 for the Admiralty and remained in  use by the RAF until 1957.  The base itself had a network of 2 ft lines. In WW2 the 19-mile WVR also served 6 USAAF airfields and this resulted in vastly increased traffic at six of the stations for the construction and subsequent supply of these bases, while additional sidings and junctions were established. Lorries conveyed goods from the stations to the airfields.  As an example, the Air Ministry spent £2369 in 1944 on a new siding at Earsham, which handled 625 special trains formed of 21038 wagons carrying over 200000 tonnes of freight and earning £359100 revenue for the LNER. The siding was formally approved by the BOT for use in 1948!  Typical passenger receipts at this station in the 1920s were under £900 pa, so this was one of many minor lines that had their busiest ever time during WW2.

[Dava]

I don’t think it’s been mentioned that RAF Leuchars in Fife was rail served mainly for fuel by a siding from Leuchars Junction station until 1994 and had a pair of NBL then R&H locos. The siding and level crossing site still visible outside the now-closed base.

 

https://www.railscot.co.uk/locations/R/RAF_Leuchars/
 

Dava

[Fat Controller]

RAF Manston had been rail-connected during WW1, when it had been a Royal Navy Air Station. Parts of the route, near Margate, are still visible.

[Arun Sharma]

RAF Gaydon [now part of the Jaguar-Land Rover complex and home to model railway shows on occasion] was co-located with the ammunition school and depot at Kineton which has its own extensive railway as well as a main line connection. As Gaydon was the first V bomber base [Vickers Valiant], its buckets of instant sunshine would have been looked after by Kineton.

Edited April 12, 2022 by Arun Sharma

[Calnefoxile]

RAF Melksham, which is now Bowerhill Industrial Estate, use to be rail served. I know this as my Father-In-Law did his Trade Training there during his National Service as an Avionics Technician.

 

He also confirmed that when he went on Leave he causght a train from RAF Melksham station and then on to Nottingham.

 

I was at RAF Henlow in the 1980's and although the line had long gone, you could just about see the remnants of it if you looked hard enough.

 

Regards

 

Neal. 

[David Bell]

Slightly off topic, due to the era, there was a short lived RNAS base at Longside (Lenabo) , North of Aberdeen at which airships were based from 1916 to 1920 which was rail served.

Cheers

David

[Darius43]

On 12/04/2022 at 16:46, Arun Sharma said:

RAF Gaydon [now part of the Jaguar-Land Rover complex and home to model railway shows on occasion] was co-located with the ammunition school and depot at Kineton which has its own extensive railway as well as a main line connection. As Gaydon was the first V bomber base [Vickers Valiant], its buckets of instant sunshine would have been looked after by Kineton.

Pretty sure the RAF had its own nuclear weapons storage facilities (RAF Barnham etc.).   As far as I am aware Kineton stored (and continues to store) conventional munitions.

 

I was involved in several projects at Kineton in the 1990s - long after the RAF ceased to be the UK’s nuclear deterrent.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

[SamThomas]

On 12/04/2022 at 15:38, Fat Controller said:

RAF Manston had been rail-connected during WW1, when it had been a Royal Navy Air Station. Parts of the route, near Margate, are still visible.

Somewhere, I have an old (1950's ish) OS map that shows "cse of old railway" intermittantly between the western end of the runway going toward the area known as "Plum Pudding Island" away frtom Margate.

 

As an aside if the airport was reopened it's would probably only require a mile or so link from the terminal to the Ramsgate/Ashford line & onto HS1 & just over an hour from St P.

[KeithMacdonald]

Welford (RAF/USAF) had a line from the Lambourn Valley Railway at Welford Park station.

 

 

There's a good article page about that on the Lambourn Valley Railway website:

https://www.lambournvalleyrailway.info/welfordairbase.html

 

The remains of the railbed are still visible, and access to the base was replaced by road. With one entrance from the M4 (for years marked by a red "Works" sign), and one from the north side near Nodmoor Corner (near Leckhampstead).

 

If it's a branch of a branch, should it be called a twig?

Edited May 19, 2022 by KeithMacdonald
Better map

[AMJ]

The book about the Derwent Valley Rly mentions that Elvington base was built a mile away from the station and brought in construction materials.  Also when it became operational in Oct 1942 ammunition and ordinance were shipped to the station.

 

Many military bases had internal railway systems however there seemed to be no where as many compared to ordnance factories that had yards with diesel shunters.  ROF Thorpe Arch has a nice complex of trackwork and maps exist online.

[pH]

22 minutes ago, AMJ said:

Many military bases had internal railway systems however there seemed to be no where as many compared to ordnance factories that had yards with diesel shunters.  ROF Thorpe Arch has a nice complex of trackwork and maps exist online.

Thorp Arch had more than a yard - it had the Thorp Arch Circular Railway:

 

https://www.newrailwaymodellers.co.uk/Forums/viewtopic.php?t=54809

 

During WW2, passenger trains ran round this, off the Church Fenton-Harrogate line, to transport ROF staff to and from work. These trains came from some distance away - Richard Hardy has written about those to/from Wakefield.

 

There used to be a building on the British Library site known as ‘the engine shed’. Looking at Google Maps, it appears to still be there.

[AMJ]

Full track plan for Thorp Arch 

http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/features/thorp_arch/index10.shtml

 

[Michael Hodgson]

My father served in the RAF during WW2.  He used to say the Americans might have had airbases but the RAF always had stations or airfields, although in the UK even the USAAF operated from what were officially RAF stations.  And of course the RAF didn't have planes (or worse still, crates, kites etc).  They were always aeroplanes or aircraft.

[Morello Cherry]

I assume that despite the railway passing right by it, that nothing was ever brought into Filton?

[Gridiron]

RAF /USAF Burtonwood was rail connected probably up to the time of it's closure. I remember on a visit to the huge site there were still plenty of rail wagons in the sidings.

 

 Great Sankey, Burtonwood Airbase, 47597 (10.52 Liverpool L… | Flickr

 

Photos show scale and important role of Burtonwood Airbase | Warrington Guardian

 

 

[MarkC]

On 04/04/2022 at 23:37, Michael Hodgson said:

One or two airfields had runways so close to a railway that the control tower had the ability to put signals to danger in emergency. 

 

 

I believe that RAF Woodvale, which is adjacent to the ex-LYR Liverpool (Exchange)-Southport line, had such a facility at one time.

Edited June 26, 2022 by MarkC